The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives.

• Author: Holm, Tawny L.
• Position: Book Review

The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives. Edited by MARGARET S. ODELL and JOHN T. STRONG. SBL Symposium Series, vol. 9. Atlanta: SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, 2000. Pp. xiii + 270. $39.95 (paper).

This collection of essays includes nine papers, seven of which were initially presented at the SBL Seminar on Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel in 1997 and 1998. The division of the essays into two parts, theology and anthropology, reflects the themes of the seminar each year. The introduction by Ralph W. Klein aptly places this volume in its historical context, noting that views of nearly every aspect of the study of Ezekiel, especially its dating and theology, have changed radically throughout the last century. What connects many of these contributions is the trend for viewing the Book of Ezekiel as a unity.

Daniel Block's paper investigates fourteen Mesopotamian texts from the Sumerian Curse of Agade to the Cyrus Cylinder with parallels to Ezekiel's motif of the abandonment of a city or land by a god. Baruch J. Schwartz's essay, "Ezekiel's Dim View of Israel's Restoration," notes how odd the oracles of the restoration of Israel seem in the face of Ezekiel's commission to deliver only woe. In contrast to Jeremiah or Isaiah, no reasons--such as Yahweh's enduring love, forgiveness, or grace, or even the penitence of Israel--are given for the restoration. Instead, the restoration itself seems to be part of Israel's punishment, performed out of Yahweh's self-interest and "a consuming concern for his reputation" among the nations (p. 65). For a contrasting view of covenant and retribution, see Ka Leung Wong, The Idea of Retribution in the Book of Ezekiel (Boston, 2001).

John T. Strong contends that Ezekiel's visions of Yahweh's kabod, "glory," were not contrary to the Zion traditions of the Jerusalem temple cult. Yahweh was never dethroned, but the kabod, Yahweh's hypostasis, went out of the temple to battle Chaos and purify the earth before returning to Zion at the end of the book. This interpretation seems somewhat awkward, however, since the kabod in Ezekiel is never said to do battle.

Steven S. Tuell proposes that the text of Ezekiel was a "verbal icon" that mediated to exiled readers Ezekiel's ecstatic experience of an ascent to heaven. Ezekiel reworked his traditional priestly ideology about Yahweh's presence in the city or cult, and the text itself "replaced the temple as the locus of divine presence"...