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and the influence of Cho’s and Yoido’s socialministries on Korean society. Unfortunately,too many grammatical and stylistic irregulari-ties will distract western readers. Still, this vol-ume provides important self-critical reflectionsand should be read alongside other treat-ments of Yoido Pentecostalism such as that byMenzies, ed., David Yonggi Cho: A Close Lookat His Theology and Ministry, and Kim, Historyand Theology of Korean Pentecostalism: Sun-begeum (Pure Gospel) Pentecostalism.

Amos YongRegent University School of Divinity

Jewish ThoughtTOWARD A JEWISH THEOLOGY OFLIBERATION. By Marc H. Ellis. 3rdexpanded ed. Waco, TX: Baylor UniversityPress, 2004. Pp. xviii + 260. $34.95, ISBN1-932792-00-7.

As university professor of American andJewish studies and director of the Center forAmerican and Jewish Studies at Baylor Univer-sity (since 1999), Ellis continues to expand onhis Jewish theology of liberation, even fromwithin the heart of the evangelical south. Thisvolume combines his earlier Toward a JewishTheology of Liberation: The Uprising and theFuture (Orbis, 1989) and Beyond Innocenceand Redemption: Confronting the Holocaustand Israeli Power (Harper, 1990), revises theearlier work throughout, and adds a new intro-duction and an epilogue titled “The Coming ofConstantinian and Evangelical Judaism.” Aswith his various other books since 1990, Elliskeeps upping the ante, arguing in this thirdexpanded edition that empowered Israelinationalistic ideology has legitimated thenation’s acts of oppression against the Palestin-ian exiles. His proposals include retrieval of thememory of Jewish history in the West (culmi-nating in the Holocaust), appropriation of theJewish tradition of (prophetic) dissent in dia-logue with Christian theologies of liberation,and enactment of an inclusive liturgy ofdestruction in order to enable solidarity withthe oppressed and the practice of justice andcompassion. Forewords by D. Tutu and G.Gutiérrez exemplify the kind of interreligioussolidarity that Ellis champions. The result is amodel of “evangelical theology” at its propheticbest!

Amos YongRegent University School of Divinity

A GUIDE TO THE ZOHAR. By ArthurGreen. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 2004. Pp. xiv + 191. $14.95, ISBN0-8047-4908-6.

This volume is an introduction for the non-specialist to the new Pritzker edition of the

Zohar. In clear language, the author considersfour major aspects of the Zohar. In the intro-duction, he briefly reviews the history of thekabbalistic tradition prior to the Zohar and elu-cidates the Ten Sefirot, the basic symbols ofKabbalah. The second section looks at thenature of the Zohar. Its external form is that ofa Midrash on the Torah, but it is more. It is alsothe narrative of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai and hisperipatetic band of disciples who discuss andexperience the mysteries of the Zohar. TheZohar’s treatment of basic theological conceptsmakes up the third section. They include cre-ation, good and evil, revelation, and the com-mandments. Other themes discussed includethe life of worship, the holy man (zaddiq), andthe exile of Israel and its redemption. The lastsection considers the questions of authorship ofthe Zohar, its editing and printing history, andthe process of its canonization. There are nofootnotes, but an extensive bibliography pro-vides valuable guidance for further study. Thiswork can stand on its own as an excellent in-troduction to the Zohar, the central text of theJewish mystical tradition. It is highly recom-mended to anyone interested in Jewish mysti-cism and would make an excellent text forundergraduate courses.

Morris M. FaiersteinRockville, MD

CHRISTIANS IN THE WARSAWGHETTO: AN EPITAPH FOR THE UNRE-MEMBERED. By Peter F. Dembowski. NotreDame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,2005. Pp. x + 161. Cloth, $40.00, ISBN 0-268-02572-X; paper, $18.00, ISBN 0-268-02573-8.

In his “microhistory” of the Holocaust,Romance Languages Professor Dembowksi,himself an eyewitness to wartime Warsaw,explores the Jewish Christian communities thatexisted in the Warsaw ghetto. The result is afascinating reflection upon the intersections ofidentity and the consolations of religion forthose living and dying in the doomed ghetto.Dembowski argues that the absolute anti-Semitism inherent in the Nazi definition of“Jew” as a racial rather than religious categorymystified the religious communities of Polandand ultimately helped remove “the last vestigesof the age-old anti-Judaism of the [Catholic]Church.” Both Jewish antipathy to Christianconverts and Polish anti-Semitism are treatedwith nuance and sympathy. Perhaps the mosttouching section, however, is a meditation onforgiveness from one of the Jewish Christians,which suggests that even in the great darknessof the Holocaust, some found that love wasstronger than hate. The book is a valuable con-tribution to Holocaust studies and a worthymemorial to the Jewish Christians of the War-saw ghetto. Recommended for university andseminary libraries.

Glenn M. HardenEscuela Caribe

Judaism: Hellenistic through

Late AntiquityMYSTICAL BODIES, MYSTICALMEALS: EATING AND EMBODIMENTIN MEDIEVAL KABBALAH. By JoelHecker. Detroit, MI: Wayne State UniversityPress, 2005. Pp. x + 282. $44.95, ISBN 0-8143-3181-5.

This study explores the role of eating andthe body in the Zoharic corpus. Hecker beginswith a comprehensive survey of the religioussignificance of eating in Biblical and rabbinicliterature as it developed prior to the thirteenthcentury. The Zohar was ambivalent about eat-ing and the body. Sometimes, the focus waspurely on the spiritual, and other times, theunion of the physical and spiritual was a pre-requisite to spiritual attainment. Satiation wasno longer merely a physical act but was alsounderstood as a spiritual experience. For thekabbalists, the body not only ingested physicalfood but also ingested knowledge. They ideal-ized certain foods and explained how they werespiritually transformed and also raised the spir-itual level of the mystic who consumed them.The setting of the meal was also an occasionfor mystical speculation and fellowship. Thetheurgic aspects of eating and the symbolism ofmeals are important aspects of the Zohar. Thethree Sabbath meals, in particular, are the focusof much mystical speculation and theurgicactivity. The author explores these themes, uti-lizing ritual studies, gender studies, and anthro-pology in addition to the more traditionalphilological methods of analysis. He concludesthat the Zohar was more concerned with therituals and traditions that surround meals thanwith the physical aspects of food and eating.Similarly, regarding the body, the overcomingof physicality was more important than its cel-ebration. This is a valuable study that can berecommended for students of mysticism and ofembodiment in religion.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

ANCIENT JEWISH NOVELS: ANANTHOLOGY. Edited and Translated byLawrence M. Wills. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2002. Pp. x + 298. $24.95, ISBN0-19-5151429.

The Greco-Roman period saw the begin-nings of a new genre of Jewish literature, thepopular novel. The novel in this sense is definedas “written popular narrative fiction, expandedsignificantly beyond a single episode, whichfocuses on character and virtue.” This anthol-ogy collects the ancient Jewish texts that fit thisdescription. Most of them are found in theApocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Among the

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texts included are Tobit, Judith, Greek Esther,Third Maccabees, and the Testaments of Abra-ham, Job, and Joseph. The major theme of theseworks is the tension between the claims of Jew-ish ethnicity and Greco-Roman “universalism.”A second common theme is the centrality of thefemale protagonist and her influence regardingthe issue of religious renewal. The texts areclearly translated with introductions and sug-gestions for further readings. An overall intro-duction to the volume puts the concept of theancient novel into broader perspective. Thisbook would serve as an excellent introductionto this genre for undergraduates and would bea useful resource in a variety of courses.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

THE HEART AND THE FOUNTAIN: ANANTHOLOGY OF JEWISH MYSTICALEXPERIENCES. Edited by Joseph Dan. NewYork: Oxford University Press. 2002. Pp. viii +326. $30.00, ISBN 0-19-513978-X.

The twenty-five selections in this anthologypresent the wide diversity of spiritual experi-ences in Judaism that can be considered mysti-cal. The texts begin with the visions of theMerkavah mystics in the Talmudic period, con-tinue through the medieval and early modernperiods, and end with contemporary Israelipoetry. About half of the texts are kabbalistic,in the narrow sense of the term, that is, usingthe language and symbols of the medieval kab-balistic tradition. The other half contains spiri-tual texts that can be described as mysticalwithin the context of Judaism using other lan-guage and symbols. Each selection begins witha helpful introduction concerning the authorand the sources of the text. The selections arepreceded by an important introduction to thewhole book in which the author explains theunique characteristics of the Jewish mysticaltradition and how it differs from Christian andIslamic mystical traditions. He also provides abrief overview of the history of Jewish mysti-cism that places the selections in their largercontext. This work is intended for the nonspe-cialist and general reader. It would also be use-ful as a text for undergraduate courses in Jewishmysticism. It is highly recommended as a win-dow into Jewish mysticism.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

THE THREE TEMPLES: ON THE EMER-GENCE OF JEWISH MYSTICISM. ByRachel Elior. Oxford and Portland, OR: Litt-man Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. Pp.x + 301. Cloth, $49.50, ISBN 1-874774-66-8;paper, $24.95, ISBN 1-904113-33-8.

This innovative study presents a new theoryabout the origins of Merkavah (Divine Chariot)Mysticism, the earliest Jewish mystical tradi-tion. The author demonstrates that the Merka-vah texts of the rabbinic period are directlylinked to the Qumran scrolls and the commu-

nity that produced them. This community wasled by the Zadokite priests who had been dis-placed by the Hasmoneans as the priests whooversaw the temple. When they could no longerserve in the earthly temple, they transferredtheir spiritual energies into descriptions of acelestial temple where angels ministered andbrought offerings, like their earthly counter-parts once did.

The first of the three temples were destroyedby the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The secondtemple, while not yet physically destroyedwhen much of the Qumran literature was writ-ten, had been defiled by the priestly usurperswhom the Zadokites termed the Children ofDarkness. Like the prophet Ezekiel who hadsought solace in a vision of a celestial temple,these Zadokite priests also sought solace in acelestial third temple where their ministry wascontinued by angels. The Heikhalot literature,with its descriptions of the Merkavah, was thefinal stage in the priestly visionary literature ofQumran. This is an important book for anyoneinterested in the Qumran sectaries and in theorigins of the Jewish mystical tradition. It iswell written, lays out its arguments clearly, andcan be highly recommended.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

Judaism: MedievalEXILE IN AMSTERDAM: SAUL LEVIMORTEIRA’S SERMONS TO A CONGRE-GATION OF “NEW JEWS.” By Marc Saper-stein. Monographs of the Hebrew UnionCollege, 32. Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew UnionCollege Press, 2005. Pp. xxii + 585. $49.95,ISBN 0-87820-457-1.

Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira (1596?-1660) wasone of the leading rabbis in seventeenth-centuryAmsterdam. He was also an outstandingpreacher, and a volume containing fifty of hissermons was published during his lifetime. Inaddition, he left behind five hundred and fiftysermons in manuscript, the results of fortyyears of service as the rabbi of the Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam. Sapersteinhas produced a magisterial study of these ser-mons. After describing Morteira’s historicalimage and the manuscripts, he analyzes howthe sermons were constructed and how theywere delivered. The community to which thesermons were addressed is considered, and hesheds light on the issues raised in the sermons.They reflected the life of the Portuguese-Jewishcommunity in Amsterdam and also sought toshape their religious and social behavior. Thethemes of exile and the Jewish relation to Chris-tianity were close to the concerns of the “newJews,” many of whom had recently reverted toJudaism after having lived as Christians in Por-tugal. The last part of the book contains anno-tated translations of eight sermons, in their

entirety. They serve to concretize the themes ofthe earlier sections of the book. This is a majorcontribution to the history of the Jewish sermonand an important contribution to the religious,intellectual, and cultural history of early mod-ern Jewish history. The arguments are cogentlypresented and the style is engaging. It deservesa place in every library and on the shelf of everyscholar working in the areas that it touches.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

PHYSICIAN OF THE SOUL, HEALEROF THE COSMOS: ISAAC LURIA ANDHIS KABBALISTIC FELLOWSHIP. ByLawrence Fine. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer-sity Press, 2003. Pp. xiii + 480. $24.95, ISBN0-8047-4826-8.

Luria is arguably the most influential Jewishreligious figure in the last five hundred years.The kabbalistic circles of Safed in the sixteenthcentury introduced new religious ideas andpractices that transformed Judaism. Luria,though he only lived in Safed for a little overtwo years (1570-72) and died at the age ofthirty-eight, was at the center of this religiousrevolution. Yet it is only now that we have thefirst comprehensive biography of this seminalfigure. This book presents a comprehensiveoverview of sixteenth-century Safed and themystics who lived and studied there. However,it falls short in two significant areas. First, thereis no discussion of the influence of the Safedinnovations in religious practice that had a pro-found effect on Jewish religious life and isprobably the aspect of Safed mysticism that hashad the widest impact on Judaism. The theoret-ical mystical teachings, discussed by the author,were known only to a small elite, and themajority of the texts that present these ideaswere not published until the end of the eigh-teenth and into the nineteenth century. Second,the author accepts G. Scholem’s understandingof Lurianic “messianism” without any signifi-cant analysis or critique. He does not considerthe possibility raised by recent scholars that theredemption spoken of by Luria referred to thespiritual life of the individual mystic rather thanthe cosmos. This book is a significant contribu-tion to our understanding of Luria and Safedkabbalah, but it is not the last word on thisimportant subject.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

THE SABBATEAN PROPHETS. By MattGoldish. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,2004. Pp. xii + 221. $39.95, ISBN 0-674-01291-7.

The outbreak and great success of the mes-sianic movement surrounding Sabbatei Sevi in1665-66 is one of the great puzzles of Jewishhistory. G. Scholem’s theory that Lurianic kab-balah was the motivation for the Sabbateanmovement has been shown to be unconvincing,but until now no plausible alternative has been