The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, by Ziony Zevit. London/New York: Continuum, 2001. Pp. xxii + 821. $69.95 (paper). ISBN 0826463398. This substantial volume offers an account of Israelite religion during the Iron Age, up to 586 B.C.E., based on a thorough presentation of evidence. Rather than a history of Israelite religion on the order of well-known works by Yehezkel Kaufmann, Helmer Ringgren, and Rainer Albertz or a focused comparative textual treatment like the studies of Frank Moore Cross or Mark S. Smith, Zevit intentionally seeks to offer something different. In so doing, he responds to what he views as a scholarly propensity toward theoretically driven scholarship that is unduly influenced by understandings of religion operative in our contemporary setting, a propensity that, according to Zevit, results in presentations of "the alleged contents of Israel's belief (as reflected in the Bible)" (xiii). As a correction, Zevit takes a phenomenological approach with two aims: (1) to describe Israelite religion based on an integration of biblical, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence; (2) "to synthesize these within the structure of an Israelite worldview and ethos involving kin, tribes, land, traditional ways and places of worship, and a national deity" (xiv).
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