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JOHN R. LEVISON, The Spirit in First Century Judaism (AGAJU 29; Leiden/ New York/Cologne: Brill, 1997). Pp. xiv + 302. NLG 158, $93.
As the author of numerous articles on the topic, John Levison, associate professor of biblical interpretation at Duke Divinity School, is well established as an expert on the Spirit in Second Temple Judaism. Here he expands upon previous work to produce a volume that is notable for its painstaking analysis and clarity of exposition.
The heart of the book consists of seven research essays, each on a special aspect of pneuma exemplified in different passages penned by early Jewish writers. The procedure in each case is fairly routine. L. first isolates "exegetical movements" the writers make in refashioning biblical narratives, specifically instances where the depiction of pneuma seems to have little or no scriptural precedent. The nature of these departures is then clarified through comparison with contemporaneous Jewish and Greco-Roman sources.
Levison begins by examining how Philo, Josephus, and Pseudo-Philo (the author of the Liber antiquitatum biblicarum) recast the story of Balaam, altering certain details so as to characterize the Spirit either as an invading angel or as the "life force" of Gen 6:3. In Pseudo-Philo's version of the exploits of Kenaz and Gideon, by contrast, possession of...