Johnson M. Kimuhu:Leviticus: The Priestly Laws and Prohibitions from the Perspective of Ancient Near East and Africa. New York Peter Lang, 2008 (Studies in Biblical Literature, vol. 115). xx + 435 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4331-0200-4. Hb. Eiuro 69,20.
The author is a Kenyan scholar, originally trained at St. Paul’s United Theological College in Limuru ( Kenya). He has previously taught at a Presbyterian college and worked as a Bible translator in Kenya, and he is currently working as Associate Counsellor at Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services in Pasadena ( California). The present book is a revised version of a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies, supervised by Tammi Schneider and accepted by Claremont Graduate University ( California) in 2007.
The book title is quite misleading. The main title makes the reader expect a kind of commentary to Leviticus, and the subtitle seems to relate (the texts of) Leviticus to the contexts of the Ancient Near East and contemporary or traditional Africa. In reality, the book has a more narrow focus, circling around the family laws of Lev 18. The opening chapter reviews family laws and especially the question of incest from anthropological, sociological and exegetical perspectives. The next chapter offers an exegetical interpretation of Lev 18, arguing that the narrative material of Genesis does not provide any framework for the family laws with respect to incestuous marriages. Then follow six chapters analyzing traditional, scholarly literature on incest and family laws in Egyptian, Ugaritic, Hittite and Canaanite literature. Finally, the last quarter of the book relates some issues in Lev 18 to African – in particular Kikuyu ( Kenya) – cultural traditions, with special emphasis on how certain key terms expressing taboos have been translated in the Kikuyu translation of the Old Testament. Unfortunately, this last quarter does not keep the same academic standard as the rest of the book, and could have been omitted.
As pointed out above, the book is circling around the family laws of Lev 18, that is, it is not a traditional thesis building up a consistent discourse with a clear conclusion. Rather, it is more a collection of quite independent discussions of family laws in ancient Israel and its surroundings, though with a particular focus on questions raised by Lev 18. Nevertheless, as such, as a collection of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern material related to the family laws in Lev 18, it is a valuable contribution.
Reviewed 2008-05-01 by Knut Holter, School of Mission and Theology, Misjonsvegen 34, N-4024 Stavanger, Norway. E-mail: knut.holter@mhs.no
