Richard J. Bautch, Developments in Genre between Post-Exilic Prayers and the Psalm of Communal Lament (SBL Academia Biblica 7; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Pp. xiv + 201. Paper $33.95.

This Notre Dame dissertation, written under the direction of Joseph Blenkinsopp, joins a long list of recent studies of post-exilic penitential prayer, all of which are reviewed in the first chapter. In his investigation of Isa 63:7-64:11 (following the versification in the Hebrew Bible), Ezra 9:6-15, and Neh 9:6-37, Bautch investigates genre development and setting in life and compares these prayers with the genre of communal lament. Thus B. articulates how these prayers have been influenced by the conventions of communal lament (such as psalms 44, 74, 78, 79, and 80, all dated to the pre-exilic period) and acknowledges their artful departure from these conventions.

Chapters 2, 3, and 4 respectively are devoted to a study of each of the above-mentioned prayers. After a translation, supported by text critical annotations, the chapters focus on a rigorous form-critical investigation. B. shows that the lament and the motivation elements of the genre have been infused with confession of sin, as has the additional element, the historical recital. The historical recital remains a fixture in Second Temple penitential prayers, but in the examples of late post-exilic briefly surveyed in chapter 5 (Prayer of Manasseh, 4Q504 Words of the Luminaries, and 1 Maccabees 2) history’s figures come to serve as moral models for penitent sinners to emulate and not so much as direct confessions of sin. In the early post-exilic period, however, the confession of sin supplanted the lament as the element leading up to the petition in a psalm of communal lament. By incorporating the confession of sin so significantly into their structure and expression the three psalms studied in detail represent a nadir in perceptions of the divine-human relationship. In Ezra 9:6-15 and Neh 9:6-37 the prophetic function of warning is greater than in the psalms of communal lament.

While confession of sin permeates many of the form-critical elements drawn from the psalms of communal lament, this feature becomes less conspicuous in prayers in the Hellenistic and Roman eras. Instead of the motivational element, a confession of sin was often used in post-exilic practice, but several later prayers again attempt to motivate God by a recital of divine attributes. In the second last page of the book we are told that the categories of “wicked” and “righteous” were applied invariably to God and humans, respectively—surely the opposite is what B. meant to say! (see p. 120)—but in a late prayer from Qumran the term “righteous” is applied to humans as well as God.

The form-critical observations in this monograph are astute and helpful, but their value is diminished somewhat by opinions expressed about date and authorship that are by no means convincing. B. proposes that Isa 63:15-19a had its origin in the seventh century, Isa 64:4b-11 in the sixth century, and Isa 63:7-14 and 63:19b-64:4a in the post-exilic period. B. suggests that since Isa 63:7-14 begins Israel’s history with the patriarchs the author did not yet know a redaction of Pentateuchal material that included the creation theology of Genesis 1-11, while the ending the historical survey with the death of Moses sent a signal to Persian authorities that the Jews had no designs on sovereignty. Few will be persuaded that this paragraph must antedate P. It is also not convincing to date Isa 63:18a (For a short while you people had possession [of your sanctuary]) to the relatively brief time in which the Josianic reform had oversight over the temple.

B. follows his mentor Blenkinsopp in ascribing the authorship of Ezra and Nehemiah to the Chronicler, against much current opinion. Hence he attributes the chapters dealing with intermarriage, Ezra 9-10, to the Chronicler even though the Chronicler himself includes at least six intermarriages in his genealogies without criticizing them and totally omits the Deuteronomistic Historian’s chastising of Solomon for his foreign wives. B. denies Ezra 9:6-15 to his Chronicler because of tensions with the Chronicler’s message although the Chronicler was still able to include this prayer in his work. Most of this discussion becomes moot if Ezra 9-10 does not stem from the Chronicler at all. Similar problems attend the ascription of Nehemiah 9-10 to the Chronicler. Although B. does conclude that Neh 9:6-37 had a separate origin from the Chronicler, it seems more likely to me that this prayer was composed for this literary context.

Despite these somewhat misguided conclusions on date and authorship, the form-critical observations in this book are indeed a major contribution.

Ralph W. Klein, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60615

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