228 REVIEW OF BOOKS gnostic ideas. The latter appear to have roots in Apocalyptic Jewish tradition), J. VAN BRUGGEN'Scontribution on "The year of the death of Herod the Great" (Shortly before or shortly after 1 Nisan 4 B.C.E. The years of Herod's successors are counted in such a way that 1 Tishri 5- 1 Tishri 4 B.C.E. is considered the first year. The supposition that Josephus counts the years of kings of Israel from 1 Nisan in each year is untenable for the chronology of Herod and his successors) and L. VAN HARTINGS- VELD's essay on "Die Zahl des Tieres, die Zahl eines Menschen. Apo- kalypse XIII 18" (Not 666, but 616 is the original reading. The key for unriddling the riddle lies in the equation 7 = N, i.e. in moving up the letters of qy.rr dwm?.tynu?.r(Emperor Domitian) 18 places to swk' tbtivhmybk (numeral value 616) according to a square diagram of the Hebrew alphabet). Both volumes conclude with indices of authors, subjects and references). A. S. VAN DER WOUDE

George W. E. NICKELSBURG,Jr., Studies on the Testament of (S.B.L. and Cognate Studies 6), Scholars Press, Missoula, Montana 1976, X + 340 pp., price $ 4.50 (members $ 3.00) (In september 1972 the S.B.L. Seminar at the International Congress of Learned Societies in the Field of Religion held in Los Angeles organised a symposium on "The Testament of Abraham and Related Problems". The papers were published in 1972 Proceedings (Septuagint and Cognate Studies 2) by R. A. KRAFT (see JSJ IV, 1, p. 80). The present volume consists of more or less revised versions of the papers read in 1972 plus a large number of new contributions, chosen and introduced by George NICKELSBURG,who also wrote a "Summary and Prospects for Future Work" (pp. 289-298). It is, in fact, a new volume of studies absolutely indispensable for students of the Testament of Abraham in particular and of related Jewish pseudepigrapha in general. G. NICKELSBURGgives, after his introduction, a useful "Review of Literature" (pp. 9-22) consisting of an annotated bibliography and reviews of the recent major works of F. SCHMIDT, M. DELCOR and E. JnrrssEN. Next follows his "Eschatology in the Testament of Abraham; A Study of the Judgment Scenes in the Two Recensions" (pp. 23-64), a revised version of his paper of 1972, now in discussion with F. SCHMIDT'S "The Two Recensions of the Testament of Abraham; In Which Way Did the Trans- formation Take Place?" (pp. 65-84). NICKELSBURGadds a short article, "Structure and Message in the Testament of Abraham" (pp. 85-93) in which he, as in his earlier article, tries to argue "that the structure of Rec. A is more primitive than that of Rec. B although the latter may contain some primitive elements and wording which were revised in Rec. A" (p. 92). SCHMIDTreaches the opposite conclusion for several, among other also linguistic reasons. Both N. and S. show that to speak of "the" recen- sions A and B amounts to a simplification. When the long-awaited new edition of the Testament of Abraham by J. SMIT SIBINGAand F. SCHMIDT appears it will be clear that text-critical and recensional problems are closely connected and that particularly the Greek mss and the versions belonging to recension B differ considerably among one another. 229

R. A. MARTIN applies his "syntax criticism" to the various sections and subsections of both recensions and concludes "that, in general, rec. B is more Semitic than rec. A, but that there may also have been a Semitic source behind the additional material found in A" ("Syntax Criticism of the Testament of Abraham", pp. 95-120). Robert A. KRAFT contributes "Reassessing the "Recensional Problem" in Testament of Abraham" (pp. 121-137), a paper of great value, because the methodological questions it raises apply also to similar writings. He particularly questions the possi- bility of reaching definite conclusions with regard to the contents of the supposed original document from a study of coherence in form and content. Do we really know how writings like Test. Abr. functioned in Byzantine times and why they were copied till the 18th century? Should we not first study phenomena of Byzantine Greek and the influence of "Semiticizing" Greek on it through scriptural examples? MARTIN'Ssyntactical criteria have not been tried out on later material. "It would be extremely helpful if we could identify with some precision the characteristic linguistic features that might be expected in materials that are produced, reworked or updated by Christian editors for byzantine Christian usage" (p. 133). Anita B. KOLENKOWcontributes two studies "The Genre Testament and the Testament of Abraham" (pp. 139-152) and "The Angelology of the Testament of Abraham" (pp. 153-162). In the former she concludes that Test. Abr. is not a proper testament (the author had nothing in Genesis to fall back upon), but is "a story which uses the sins of the righteous to teach"-in the case of Abraham the sin is the desire of the righteous to destroy sinners. With KOLENKOW'Sarticles part one of the book comes to an end. In part two we find a number of parallel traditions. D. J. HARRINGTONdeals with "Abraham Traditions in the Testament of Abraham and in the "Rewritten Bible" of the Intertestamental Period" (pp. 165-171) and R. B. WARD writes on "Abraham Traditions in Early Christianity" (pp. 173-184). Next follows a long article "The Death of Moses" (pp. 185-217) by Samuel E. LOEWENSTAMM,the revised version of an article which appeared in Hebrew in Tarbiz 27 (1958), pp. 142-157 (translator K. S. COHEN) to which the author adds a short appendix "The Testament of Abraham and the Texts Concerning the Death of Moses" (pp. 219-226). A possible entree into the thought world of the copyists and compilers of Test. Abr. is provided by two documents stemming from Christian circles that knew Test. Abr. or at least traditions common to it. B. PEARSON gives the text and translation of part of the Pierpont Morgan Fragments of a Coptic Apocryphon in an article bearing the title of the docu- ment (pp. 227-283). He gives an elaborate and instructive introduction in which he points out that there are parallels to both recensions. G. MacRAE contributes a short article on "The Judgment Scene in the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul" (pp. 285-288) (giving the translation of 20, 5-22, 13). After NICKELSBURG'S"Summary and Prospect" already mentioned there are two appendices. One, by D. S. COOPER and H. B. WEBER, gives a translation, with introduction and text critical notes, of the Church Slavonic