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On the subject of the name Yhwh, M. posits that it was always known to the ances-tors. What actually happened at Sinai, according to M., was that the revelation of the

name was nothing more than a new understanding given to Moses concerning the nature ofIsraels God, not the disclosure of a new name (p. 60). M. sees monotheism as the religionof the forebears of the Israelites from the beginning (p. 62) and, thus, not the result of adevelopment in Israelite religious thinking.

When it comes to the actual commentary on specific sections of Genesis, Mathewssprocedure is to give, first of all, an outline of the section of Genesis to be treated. The dis-cussion of each passage begins with the NIVtranslation of the text and then includes anintroduction and sections entitled Composition, Structure, and sometimes Motifs(see, e.g., pp. 213-15). Occasionally, he provides an excursus, for example, AbrahamsCareer and Legacy (pp. 91-97). In this excursus M. brings in NT connections (pp. 96-97).

It is in the segment of the commentary entitled Composition that M. discusses how

scholars have attributed parts of the passage under consideration to such sources as J, E, D,and/or P. Invariably he concludes that such attributions are unnecessary, since the passageis a cohesive literary unit and the work of one author. This refrain is repeated throughoutthe work. In order to support his position he draws on a number of commentators (e.g.,G. J. Wenham, Genesis 1650 [WBC 2; Waco: Word, 1995]). In summary, M. dismissesthe documentary hypothesis.

Because of my archaeological work in southern Jordan, certain segments of M.scommentary are of special interest. For example, with regard to the story of Lots incestwith his daughters, M. states that the narrative ought not to be relegated to an anti-Moabite/Ammonite piece of propaganda (p. 244). It would thus appear that M. takes thisstory at face value. With regard to Esaus family (Gen 36:1-8), M. understands the list as

pre-monarchic in origin, which was perhaps later updated (p. 634). He accepts the posi-tion that kings in Edoms early period may well refer to regional tribal chieftains compa-rable to Hebrew judges in premonarchic Canaan (p. 639).

Although I do not agree with the overall assumptions of the work, there is a vastamount of research in this volume that is important for understanding the Book of Genesis.Thus, M.s work can be a valuable resource even though one does not share the evangeli-cal tradition. Moreover, the authors positions are a reflection of how one tradition viewsGenesis as well as the other biblical books. The commentary is valuable also in that it setsout clearly the presuppositions of many students in introductory biblical courses.

The entire work is well presented, well written, and well edited, and includes a usefulbibliography and indexes of subjects, persons, and scriptural references. And the price is

right!

Burton MacDonald, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5,

Canada

CAROL A.NEWSOM, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community atQumran (STDJ 52; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2004). Pp. x + 376. $155.

Scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls should be grateful that Carol Newsom has appliedher prodigious talents to the study of two texts central to the community at Qumran. Her

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attunement to language, sensitivity to questions of anthropology, and ability to synthesize

produce an account that performs the difficult and needed task of reducing theological

abstractions (with which scholarship on the Scrolls often abounds) to anthropological real-ities. Her overarching question is What do Serek hayyah\adand theHdayttell us about

how sectarian identity was formed?

In the first chapter, Communities of Discourse, N. presents both a theoretical and a

historical claim: (1) language itself, always essential to the construction of identity, neces-

sarily adds or challengesexists in dialogue withspeech that has preceded it, and

(2) Qumran was fundamentally a community of discourse, where linguistic expression

formed sectarian members distinct identity by articulating divergence from the language

of Common Judaism. In chap. 2, Torah, Knowledge, and Symbolic Power, N. consid-

ers the contest over the term tr among various Second Temple discourses (sapiential,

apocalyptic, and priestly), a test case for the hypothesis of discourses-in-dialogue pre-

sented in the preceding chapter. What emerges is a thought-provoking typology of SecondTemple Judaism. In the next chapter, Knowing as Doing, N. again presents simultane-

ously theoretical and historical claims: (1) the way in which particular communities define

knowledge serves as a strategy for dealing with challenges to a societys historical posi-

tion; and (2) Qumrans theory of knowledge, exemplified through the Treatise on the Two

Spirits in Serek hayyah\ad, merges the historical problem of the exile into their perspec-

tives on ideology, anthropology, and character. Chapters 4 and 5, How to Make a Sectar-

ian and What Do Hodayot Do? each almost one hundred pages, constitute the epicenter

of N.s work, providing an in-depth account of how 1QS and the Hdayt Scroll respec-

tively shape the figured world of Qumran. The Community Rule, interpreted as a rhetor-

ical unity, though acknowledged as composite, does not lay out sectarian practice. Rather,

it presents the idea of a disciplined community where strict adherence to communal regu-lations allows individuals to progress toward perfection. TheHdaytinstill the sense of

self that N. labels the masochistic sublime: the evacuation of the self and a reconstruc-

tion of it as an effect of God (p. 229), which renders the sectarian receptive to the disci-

plinary powers of the community. The book concludes with a chapter on theHdaytof

the Leader.

Newsom succeeds in reducing complicated theory to comprehensible formulations,

and the book that emerges can be seen, among other things, as a sort of introduction for the

biblical scholar to literary theory, concretized through the example of the Scrolls. If the

book feels at times too long, has frequent typos (the ficitonalized scribe Daniel [p. 42]),

and at least one mistaken reference (Ernst Cassirer was, as far as I know, the author ofPhi-

losophy of Symbolic Formsthe intention here seems to be Kenneth BurkesLanguage asSymbolic Action [p. 77 n. 2]), these lapses may be chalked up to the lack of a sufficiently

strong editorial presence. The overall strength of N.s book and the novelty of applying lit-

erary criticism to the Qumran material render this work a fertile context in which to con-

sider the meeting between theory and ancient texts. In the following paragraphs, I consider

this broader question rather than seeking to judge N.sby all accountsexcellent contri-

bution.

What is gained when Kenneth Burke reads the Scrolls? Sometimes N. seems to aim

at making universal sociological claims on the basis of her study of Qumran: language

takes pride of place among the symbolic tools for the fashioning of selves and worlds

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(p. 93). Is the Scrolls fragmentary evidence really helpful in proving an important (butalready verified) social-scientific point? So N. goes on to maintain that sectarian move-

ments must be particularly explicit and intentional in constructing the language andpractices that will give tangible shape to their world (p. 95), that Serek hayyah\adis self-consciously concerned with the formation of language, self, and community (p. 92). Inother words, she claims that this universal truth is particularly true at Qumran. But in pre-senting the sectarians as explicitly and intentionally shaping the world through language,N. imputes too much agency to the texts authors, who had little idea that language formsidentity. She begins to discern the patterns of modern literary theory in the sectarian con-sciousness itself.

Let us consider another example, N.s use of Michel Foucaults theory of disci-plinary institutions. Applied to Qumran, this perspective suggests that their strict legalobservance was a form ofaskesis, training directed at disciplining the body and rooting out

imperfections. (Foucault himself, N. acknowledges [p. 96], only viewed modern institu-tions as disciplinary.) In N.s account, 1QS itself aims at formation of language, notrecording law, for the rather dubious reason that a law code could not contain so manycontradictions, and people would know already what constituted proper practice throughoral traditions (p. 135). But is the Mishnah not also a legal code? In this account, acquisi-tion of language, not legal praxis, becomes primary, and law itself functions only to ensureproper moral and religious dispositions. But law at Qumran was not propaedeutic, amethod of approaching perfection; it was itself the ultimate expression of the true commu-nity of God. In their conceptionthough not from our contemporary sociological perspec-tivea radical human transformation occurred upon initiation into the sect, an experiencethat is frequently alluded to in theHdayt. It is hard to detect the monastic-style concep-

tion of gradual progress that N. attributes to them. Social-scientific knowledge of and lan-guage for discussing how people changeslowly and through disciplinemight bescientifically correct but false in the context of the language a group adopts to depict itsown experiences.

The significance of the Scrolls discovery is that they opened up for us a new, oftenidiosyncratic figured world. N.s theoretical background (the formative power of lan-guage) may be the right one to justify our rolling up our sleeves and immersing ourselvesin the particularities of Qumrans language and rhetoric, a process she often undertakesbrilliantly. But the extent to which theory is foregrounded is precisely the extent to whichthe sects own formulations recede. Oddly enough, theory that accords primacy to culturalparticularities ends up performing the opposite, establishing a new universal discourse that

renders the Dead Sea sect only slightly distinguishable from contemporary social groups.

David A. Lambert, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520

ANDR PAUL,La Bible avant la Bible: La grande rvlation des manuscrits de la merMorte (Paris: Cerf, 2005). Pp. 269. Paper28.

In the introduction, Paul initiates his readers into the minds of the spiritually andintellectually adept practitioners who conserved the vast literary birthright of the people of

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