Good Kings and Bad Kings.

GOOD KINGS AND BAD KINGS. Edited by Lester L. Grabbe. New York: T&T Clark, 2005. Pp. xi + 371. Cloth, $120.00.

GOOD KINGS AND BAD KINGS is a collection of articles written about the seventh-century kings of Judah with a focus on the Josiah traditions (specifically Josiah's reform). The book is the culmination of international scholars writing on the subject as papers presented to the European Seminar on Methodology in Israel's History at the European Association of Biblical Studies, which met in Berlin, Germany, 21 July 2002 and subsequent work (p. 3). The book has three sections. The first section, written by Grabbe, is an introduction and exploration of recent studies of Josiah and seventh-century Judah with a summary of contributions of various scholars' work on the subject. I found his comparison of scholars and their perspectives a good overview of the various positions (maximalist to minimalist) on the historicity of the biblical narratives concerning seventh-century Judah.

The second section is composed of eleven articles written by various international scholars. Rainer Albertz, Philip Davies, and Nadav Na'aman present three articles on various perspectives on the historicity of Josiah's reforms as presented in the biblical text. (Although Albertz mostly critiques Davies' article, his is, for some reason, placed ahead of Davies' in the book.) Ehud Ben Zvi discusses Josiah's reforms in conjunction with the prophetic books of Zephaniah and Jeremiah in his article. Christof Hardmeier discusses the Josiah narratives in 2 Kings as the climax of the Deuteronomistic History, with Josiah himself as a model of a man who changed his ways (an example to the exiles). Grabbe, in his article, compares and contrasts the biblical text and external data in reconstructing the history of seventh-century Judah, testing the reliability of the history as given in the biblical text. Articles written by David Warburton and Christopher Uehlinger examine Josiah's reforms tom an archaeological or primary source perspective. The articles written by Marvin Sweeny, Ernst Knauf, and Francesca Stavrakopoulou focus on Manasseh's reign and the biblical text writers' treatment of him in a negative light.

The last section contains Grabbe's short summation of the subject and conclusions based on the articles in the book and the 2002 seminar. He categorizes his summary under archaeology, Manasseh, Josiah, and the implications for writing history. The book ends with an index of scripture references and an index of authors.

The strength of the book is that the authors present a variety of positions, specifically the historicity of the biblical text concerning Josiah's reforms, without necessarily agreeing with one another. I think this dialog indicates how much scholars do not know about seventh-century Judah and how little the biblical text actually tells us. Another helpful item is the bibliography at the end of each article. This points the reader to a wide variety of studies on the subject.

Because the work is a collection of papers intended for an international seminar and is very detailed in nature, the articles are written for a reader at that level. The book would be a great tool for discussion in a Masters or Doctoral level course; however, a college level student or layperson may find the work difficult to follow. Perhaps the most prohibitive part of the book is its cost. Although a good read for scholars interested in seventh-century Judah, one might want to check the book out of a theological library to avoid paying the three digit price.

Terry W. Eddinger

Carolina Evangelical Divinity School 

High Point, NC 27265