Abstract
Contents
Preface iv
Abbreviations v
1. General (including Introductions and Collections of Essays) 1
2. Archaeology and Epigraphy 8
3. History, Geography and Sociology 18
4. Texts and Versions 26
5. Studies on Specific Books 33
I. Pentateuch 33
II. Former Prophets 50
III. Latter Prophets 56
IV. Psalms and Wisdom 68
V. Other Writings 79
6. Hermeneutics and History of Interpretation 83
7. Law, Religion and Theology 93
8. The Life and Thought of the Surrounding Peoples 100
9. Early Jewish Texts (including the Dead Sea Scrolls) 117
10. Philology and Grammar 130
Index of Authors XX
Index of Reviewers XX
Index of Series XX
Index of Publishers XX
P
With the 2026 edition being already my third Book List, I reckon I have earned the indulgence of a brief preface. Several hundred books have made their journey in these three years from the latest catalogues to the eagerly awaited July and October lists, from my dialogues with publishers to the patient hands of the SOTS community. The shift to but one in-person meeting per year has folded up the legs of the cherished institution of the book table, but the direct line from publisher to reviewer has reduced the haul, the postage, the wait, even as it can create some blind spots.
The Book List is among the longest continual publications in our field and, as with this shift to online conferencing, always a snapshot of its day. The earliest copies, slim pamphlets infused with that warm, antiquarian attraction, reflect a dominance of continental scholarship with the editions of and after 1933 split equally between English and German volumes with plenty of French works besides. The listings since those early days capture a shifting landscape. Particularly interesting are the Dead Sea Scrolls which graduated to their own Section as early as the Book List 1952 at the discretion of H.H. Rowley. In 1974, as noted in the preface of then-editor R.N. Whybray, that Section had ‘greatly diminished in size’ and was subsumed under ‘Apocrypha and Post-Biblical Studies’, only to be resurrected as its own Section in 2010 under the editorship of Deborah Rooke. But alas, in this present edition and for the same reason as in 1974, we find it numbered yet again with Enoch, Philo, and the rest of the gang in the newly minted Section ‘Early Jewish Texts (including the Dead Sea Scrolls)’.
This refreshing of the title of Section 9, as much as the coming and going of the Qumran materials in the Book List, shows the constant change within our discipline. That this change is often slow and hard to capture has inspired me to open Section 1 in the Book List 2026 — even at the cost of breaking alphabetic sequence(!) — with a substantial review of John Barton’s edited volume Understanding the Hebrew Bible: Essays by Members of the Society for Old Testament Study. This is the latest state-of-the-field exercise of this kind since Text in Context, edited by A.H.D. Mayes and reviewed by George Brooke in B.L. 2001.
With this short account of young and old Book List history, I present to you here another compact volume of reviews. After three years in the post, that sinking feeling about the task at hand has given way to the regular challenges and joys of editing. High on the list of the latter are my conversations with previous Book List editors, the giddy impression that I read two-hundred fifty books every January, and the pleasure of ordering books for students who may mark with that review their very first publication. These three items lead me then to conclude with a word of thanks to John Jarick for his fulsome handover in 2023, with a loud thank-you to all reviewers, generous publishers, and our SAGE contacts, and, finally, with a deep sense of gratitude for my extremely competent assistant, Kengoro Goto.
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M
A
ABG Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte
ANEM Ancient Near East Monographs
AYB Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries
BibRec The Bible and its Reception
B.L. Book List
BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
CHANE Culture and History of the Ancient Near East
CSHB Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible
DSS Dead Sea Scrolls
FAT Forschungen zum Alten Testament
FAT II Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2. Reihe
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments
HB Hebrew Bible
HBM Hebrew Bible Monographs
IECOT International Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament
LAS Leipziger Altorientalistische Studien
LHBOTS Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies
LXX Septuagint
MT Masoretic Text
NT New Testament
OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis
OT Old Testament
OTT Old Testament Theology
PLAL Perspectives on Linguistics and Ancient Languages
SBL Society of Biblical Literature
SJSJ Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism
SOTS Society for Old Testament Study
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
VTSup Vetus Testamentum Supplements
WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament