BMCR 2009.05.08: Leal on Chilton, The Cambridge Companion to the Bible. Second Edition. First edition published in 1997

Bruce Chilton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Bible. Second
Edition. First edition published in 1997.  Cambridge:  Cambridge
University Press, 2008.  Pp. x, 724; maps 19; ills. passim.  ISBN
978-0-521-69140-6.  $34.99 (pb).

Reviewed by Dave Leal, Brasenose College, Oxford
([email protected])
Word count:  1805 words
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Table of Contents
(http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0810/2008270190-t.html)

Those familiar with 'Cambridge Companions' -- whether to particular
thinkers, or to bodies of thought -- will have a sense of the standard
format; a mid-sized book with single-author chapters and an
introduction.  That format would not be likely to produce a very
companionable Companion to the Bible, and the approach here is rather
different.  The work is divided into three parts, broadly concerned in
turn with the Hebrew Bible, inter-testamental literature and the New
Testament, preceded by an introduction outlining the approach of the
authors and providing background material relevant to the book as a
whole.  Each part, and the introduction, are followed by substantial
bibliographical essays offering the reader ample opportunity to begin
to fill out detail, assess evidence and weigh interpretation.  The work
is supplemented by maps and illustrations; the two maps allowed the
luxury of color are not likely to be a significant improvement on those
regularly contained in copies of the Bible, but there are a number of
places where clear maps placed in the text are an ideal aid to
understanding.  In addition to the running text, which occupies a
column around two-thirds of the width of the page, there are frequent
pull-out boxes with background information and explanation of terms
used in the main text, varying from barely more than a hundred words to
over 3 pages of triple-column text.  It is a system that works well,
permitting extended discussion and argument to take place alongside the
flow of the book.

What, then, is this a Companion to?  It serves as a companion to a
large body of literature within which is a smaller set of texts held in
reverence by Jews and Christians.  Some of the texts discussed find
their way into Bibles used by Catholic Christians, but are generally
excluded by Protestants; some of the texts are unlikely ever to find
their way into any characterization of a collection as 'Bible', but
have their place here as indications of the milieu in which (for
example) the 'biblical' Gospels and Acts came to be, alongside the
much-discussed 'gnostic' gospels and acts.  The 'Apocryphal' and
'Deuterocanonical' writings belonging to the inter-testamental period
are discussed in some detail in Part Two of the Companion, in the
context of an account of the history and culture of a period advertised
as 332 BCE to 200 CE; curiously, discussion of the book of Daniel is
shared between the end of Part One (owing to a judgement that the
folk-tales underlying chapters 1-6 as we have them date back to the
sixth century BCE) and Part Two, where the 'apocalyptic' chapters 7-12
are discussed in the context of the events of the second century BCE.

It will be clear, then, that the Companion is not a book-by-book
commentary.  Nor, though, in spite of the example just mentioned, is it
a 'biblical history' with the texts discussed piecemeal as appropriate
(an approach which might lead to a fracturing of the discussion of
Isaiah, to name one particular example, and a significant scattering of
treatment of the psalms).  Longer books are typically subject to
careful summary analysis, with something approaching an analytical
table of contents provided, and an account of historical, social and
political context sketched.  Even shorter books (Ruth, for example,
discussed on pp. 299-302) are given a page or two of introductory
comment.  In the division of aids to biblical study into
'Introductions', 'Histories', 'Theologies' and 'Commentaries' which was
once common the Companion serves as a hybrid between introduction and
history.  (Regarding commentary, the bibliographical essay to Part One
offers a general commendation of the works in the Anchor Bible
Commentaries series, and the Old Testament Library commentaries
published by Westminster John Knox in North America, but eschews any
recommendation of particular commentaries, whilst Part Three offers the
reader a number of named commentaries on most books, giving a variety
of perspectives.)

The stated purpose of the Companion is to guide 'critical, informed
reading', and to do this by providing a 'basic knowledge of the
cultural contexts in which the biblical books were produced, including
the history, language and religious beliefs and philosophical insights
of the writers, the people they wrote about, and the audiences for whom
they wrote' (Introduction, p. 3).  The statement in the introduction
that the work is 'largely chronological in its organization' is quickly
qualified by noting the editor's desire to allow readers to follow as
far as possible 'the sequence of the books in their printed Bibles'.
The compromise works well in bridging the functions of introduction and
history, and someone using the book alongside a reading of the Bible
from cover to cover would find this possible, though it may be doubted
that the editors had precisely this use of their work in mind.  There
is, it should be added, a very full index of biblical references and a
general index of sufficient detail to guide the reader to discussion of
the books and subjects he or she may be interested in, so that had the
editors chosen (for example) to locate discussion of Genesis
chronologically in terms of a speculative date for the formation of the
text pretty much as we have it, rather than according to what we might
term its 'biblical chronology', little trouble would have been caused.

It is quite possible that the editors would have considered the
perception of separate tasks of 'introduction to the biblical texts',
on the one hand, and 'history of the biblical peoples and cultures', on
the other, as itself inimical to their stated aim of critical and
informed reading.  This has a number of consequences, which ought at
least to be noted.

We may note first that the definite article present in 'the Bible',
admittedly subject already to qualification given the contested nature
of the precise contents of the Bible, is brought under a rather
different pressure by the fragmentation of the biblical text, and even
the text of particular books, as the whole is subjected to the scrutiny
needed to provide for a suitable critical and informed reading.  In all
of this, there is a likelihood -- perhaps, one might say, a danger --
that the significance of the whole is diminished or lost.  Clearly it
is not the aim of the editors to perform this feat; if it were, they
would have been much less willing to compromise their approach to
chronology, and less willing to treat the biblical books as wholes for
the purpose of introduction.  A basis is offered upon which a different
discussion might emerge; pp. 4-35, almost the whole of the
introduction, is headed 'The Concept of God's People'.  The Bible is,
after all, in whatever particular version we may identify, a book of a
people; and, moreover, the people will identify themselves as in some
important sense 'of the book'.  The fine summary affirmation on page 8
deserves to be noted: 'The two persistent themes running throughout the
biblical writings are that (1) there is a people of God, and (2) they
have been spoken to by God'.  There is a summary account of the
development of the concept of 'canonicity' (p. 12f), and a brief
introduction to some of the key figures who play a part in the movement
towards 'modern' biblical criticism (p. 14f).  What the reader already
part of a community of faith, where the Bible is read and expounded, or
the reader from outside a community of faith wishing a companion to
explain the significance of this book for so many, will miss is the way
in which the Bible as a whole figures in the life of (say) the Roman
Catholic Church, and the way in which the twin affirmations of 'people
of God' and of 'a God who speaks' relate to the Bible as a whole.
Perhaps a companion to the Bible has no role here, and these are
questions for a Companion to Christian Doctrine, or to the Christian
Church, but this is not obvious.

These considerations bring us close to central questions regarding the
relationship of critical and informed reading of the Bible in the
paradigm sponsored here, to critical and informed writing within a
community of faith.  To take them further would be to move beyond the
immediate concerns of the work under review.  What should be said,
though, is that within the paradigm of critical scholarship on the
Bible adopted by the editors, this work constitutes a high water mark.

It struck this reader, at least, as also in a sense a curiously
conservative work.  What I have in mind is not a kind of theological or
biblical conservatism which seeks to support a simple and unitary
history of the biblical books as they have come to us, but rather a
preference for central, sensible hypotheses against the wilder outliers
of opinion in terms of (for example) the dating of New Testament texts.
The bibliographies continue this theme, often containing suggestions
for further introductory reading and study that have stood the test of
time well and lasted through many editions.  It is to be doubted that
many will read the whole work through from cover to cover, and the
boxed sections will provide readers with easy access to accounts of (to
give just two examples) form criticism and the Solomonic temple without
needing to wade through pages of text to do so.  Occasionally these
boxes are used (particularly in their multi-page instances) as
opportunities to develop critical assessment of some particular case of
biblical interpretation, as for example on pp. 592-595, 'Pilate, the
Politics of Rome, and Evangelical Politics'.  Such short studies are
welcome as an opportunity for the reader to gain a feel for the style
of argument and controversy in biblical interpretation, and complement
the rather more descriptive style characteristic of much of the main
text.

The production standards are of a very high order.  Black and white
photographs contained in the text are usually of sufficiently high
contrast to make detail clearly visible.  If there was a logic behind
the choice of format for the smaller pull-out boxes (merely in the
margin, or intruding into the page) I could not discover it, but the
pages are never so 'busy' as to be a distraction.  Typographical errors
are astonishingly rare.

One delightful surprise at the end of the bibliographical essay to Part
One was the section (pp. 323-325) headed 'Biography'.  This lists a
number of key figures in the development of the study of biblical
history and interpretation, from Reimarus onwards.  The justification
given is the 'false impression of the discipline and how it has
developed' which would be given without it.  One might prefer to see it
as homage to those in whose footsteps the editors are following.  As
the author of Ecclesiasticus put it (44:1), 'Let us now praise famous
men'.