The excitement which greeted the inauguration of the new edition of Schürer’s great work with the new vol. 1 in 1973 was tarnished for many of us by the fact that it had no index. To have such a treasure chest without the key to unlock it was a sore trial, and matters were only made worse when vol. 2 (1979) could still only point forward to the happy consummation of the index to follow in vol. 3. When at long last vol. 3 appeared in 1986 it was a cruel blow indeed to discover that it had been judged too large to fit between two covers, and the index was yet further postponed! But at last the eschaton is not just ‘at hand’, but has actually arrived, in the form of vol. 3 part 2, with a full 120 pages of index. At last we can discover what we have been missing all these years.
To review Schürer (even just one [two-part] volume of him) is like writing a tourist brochure for a whole continent. If you do not yet know how truly essential this work is for a proper grasp of the Jewish world in which Christianity arose, no words of mine can give you an adequate idea of its incredible riches of minutely documented information and of informed discussion of the whole range of relevant modern scholarship, all organized with considerate clarity. Go and pick up a volume in your theological library (and if it is not there demand to know why!) and if you are not captivated then you may be sure that you are not meant to be a student of Judaism or Christian origins (and may as well skip the rest of this review).
Vols. 1 and 2 almost completed the coverage of Jewish history, culture and religion of the period, leaving only the section on the Diaspora. Vol. 3 begins with this section (a mere 176 pages!). It includes a useful survey of the present state of knowledge on ‘ “God-Fearers” and Proselytes’ (pp. 150–176), from which some may be relieved to learn that despite much recent scepticism there is firm support for the time-honoured belief that ‘God-fearers’ was a recognized term for a group on the fringes of Judaism whose admiration for the religion stopped short of full proselyte conversion.
The rest of vol. 3 (except the index!) is devoted to a comprehensive survey of Jewish literature of the period, with the exception of Josephus and the Rabbinic Literature (including the Targums), which were discussed in vol. 1. This is, as far as I am aware, quite simply the most up-to-date and authoritative guide to this literature now available (bibliography up to 1983 is included). You will find here an account of virtually all Jewish writings of the period which exist or are known to have existed (for the survey includes lost works which we know of from the accounts of others, as well as those which survive only in fragments). The coverage is, no doubt, too full for the normal needs of the average theological student, but it is important to be aware that when you fail to find what you need in a briefer guide such as Nickelsburg’s Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, you are not likely to be disappointed here. And yet it is not over-burdened with technicalities, and the presentation is surprisingly accessible to anyone who is not totally unfamiliar with the subject area.
The approach is essentially descriptive, though this includes description of the course of scholarly discussion of each work as well as of the nature and contents of the book itself. On controversial issues a fair survey of the debate is given, with the author’s own view generally introduced cautiously only at the end. E.g.the Parables of Enoch are tentatively dated in the late first century ad, p. 259; and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are seen as a Jewish work deriving from the second century bc, reworked by Greek-speaking Jews in the early first century bc, and adapted by Christians in the second century ad by limited and easily recognizable editorial modifications, pp. 770–775. In each case there is a full bibliography of texts available and of modern discussion, just in case you find enough here to keep you happy!
This part of the original Schürer divided the literature into the rather arbitrary classes of ‘Palestinian-Jewish’ and ‘Graeco-Jewish’, terms which were then thought to indicate roughly the places of geographical origin of the works. That classification has long been untenable, and so the revisers have completely restructured the section along the lines of the languages in which the works were written (Hebrew or Aramaic, Greek, and uncertain). This part of the work has been expanded more than any other, on account of the vast increase in known literature, most notably through the Qumran discoveries (100 pages on these alone gives a fuller guide than most specialist works on Qumran, including 14 pages on the important and recently available Temple Scroll). Schürer himself would find very little in this new form of his work which was familiar, and I am sure he would agree that that is as it should be. The presence of his name on the cover is more an act of pietas than a realistic statement of origin.
Most of what is included will be familiar, at least by name, to those who have more than a passing acquaintance with the area. But there are some surprises, chief among which is the inclusion of a section by Philip Alexander of Manchester on ‘Incantations and Books of Magic’ (pp. 342–379), which will be an eye-opener to those who thought Jews had nothing to do with the occult. Here is a fascinating insight into the popular religion which we have always realized in theory must have existed alongside the more sophisticated Judaism of the literary texts, but which is often wrongly assumed to be inaccessible to historical enquiry. A reading of these pages would help us to understand the thought-world within which the ordinary Jew is likely to have tried to locate Jesus’ ministry of healing and exorcism, and the reasons why later anti-Christian Judaism found it easy to discredit Jesus as a sorcerer.
One slightly unexpected but valuable inclusion is an account in 30 pages (pp. 474–504) of the Greek translations of the OT (LXX, Aquila, Theodotion), giving, as usual, a succinct guide to the complexities of recent scholarly debate in this area. Another is a section (pp. 594–616) on Jewish apologetics, which give a brief account of writers known to have written specifically against the Jews, followed by a brief analysis of the way Jewish apologists (the focus falls inevitably on Philo and Josephus) responded to their attacks. The final section is a full 80 pages on Philo, by Jenny Morris; this is particularly heavily annotated, and is unlikely to be superseded for some time as a compendium of Philo scholarship.
And then, last but not least, there is the Index, which enables the whole project to come to life, as one of the most indispensable works of reference in the whole area of biblical studies.
