The World that Shaped the New Testament. (Briefly Noted).

The revised edition of The World that Shaped the New Testament by Calvin J. Roetzel (Westminster John Knox, $22.95) updates a terse guide to the political and religious climate of the Roman empire and the Jewish world. Roetzel also includes chapters on Old Testament interpretation in Judaism and on "Demons and Holy Men." He writes a clear text that should be in many parish libraries. There are some gaps. Roetzel discusses Stoicism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Cynicism, but not Epicureans or Skeptics, Hellenistic mystery religions and the healing cult of Asclepius, but does nothing with civic cults, apotheosis of emperors (e.g., represented in the Gemma Augustea), folk piety, or magic. He has added references to imperial sculpture (Augustus as general, but not as pontifex maximus or as heroic nude, and none about later emperors) and architecture (Augustus' mausoleum, but not the Ara Pacis). There is a complete absence of the nature and influence of life in a polis, a Greek city. And there are no illustrations. It is an improvement over the first edition but still has some major gaps, better on Judaism than on the Roman environment.