Matthew J. Lynch thoughtfully explores portrayals of violence in the Hebrew Bible from a variety of perspectives, informed not only by close exegetical work with specific biblical texts and insights offered by biblical scholars, but also by a range of interdisciplinary methodologies. Lynch describes his work as a study of the “grammars of violence” revealed under the heading of four topic areas: ecology, the environmental implications of scenes of violence in the Hebrew Bible; moral speech, the ways in which speaking is portrayed to relate to violence; justice, the ways in which violence is treated as part of a legal order; and purity, violence as a source of moral defilement. Each of these four sections of the book is illuminated by specific biblical case studies, for example, the environmental implications of Cain's murder of Abel or the role of violently shed blood as a source of defilement or uncleanness in that fratricidal narrative and in Ezekiel's parable of the boiling pot (Ezekiel 24:3–13). Lynch's study points out how interrelated these topic areas are and, in fact, the story of Cain and Abel is a strong thread in the work, with relevance for ethical questions about the health of the earth, about the capacity of Abel's blood to cry out in moral speech, about the ways in which his blood defiles, and about justice in the context of attitudes to capital punishment.

Emphasizing repeated language, Lynch uncovers the “recurring scripts” that express violence and the “grammars” that describe these interrelated aspects. He seeks to understand “the cultural-linguistic environments” in which representations and critiques of violence emerge in the corpus of the Hebrew Bible. He is alert to the varying world views and sociocultural contexts that frame portrayals of violence and is interested in the ways that biblical writers both embrace and criticize violent behavior, speech acts, enactments of justice, and attitudes to purity. He also touches upon the ways in which biblical representations of violence relate to contemporary ethical concerns.

Lynch's work with language is excellent in each section and allows his readers to think deeply about the implications of certain recurring roots and the traditional nature of the literature and the world views that support the powerful vocabulary in which descriptions of violence unfold. Examples are his attention to the sounds, imagery, and terms that describe “creation in a crisis state” (61); his description of “the semantic domain” of scheming and speech as they relate to deceit and violence (107–12); and his interest in terminology that relates to “crying out” in Job, Jonah, and Jeremiah (152–66).

I also appreciate the interdisciplinary underpinnings of his study, in particular his sociolinguistic interests, but also his address to grand masters in anthropology and religion such as Mary Douglas, Clifford Geertz, Jonathan Z. Smith, and Peter Berger, and his attention to classic studies of violence by René Girard, Robert Hamerton-Kelly, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes. I found the section on violence and ecology the most creative of the four studies. Building on the work of Ellen F. Davis, Katharine Dell, and William P. Brown, he explores the “physical-moral ecology” that underlies numerous biblical texts about violence. His treatment of the tale of Cain and Abel in this context is original and the links he draws between that scene in the primeval history and the subsequent story of the flood provide a new way to look at the themes that draw together these pieces of an Israelite mythic complex about world creation, destruction, and re-creation. This thread in turn allows him to consider imagery of apocalypticism in the prophets and to make further connections between violence and ecological concerns. I found his reading of Deuternomy 22:23–29 dealing with rape particularly interesting, as his attention to the language and imagery of violence leads him to suggest that the biblical composers in this particular case do exhibit concern for “the woman's own sexual integrity” (199). Many would disagree, but Lynch's argument is closely and thoughtfully made.

There are aspects of the book that warrant criticism. First, I missed the presence of a biblical reference index altogether. The subject index is thin and references to some key topics absent, so that after reading the book it becomes difficult to find one's way back to the multiple treatments of particular passages, to key themes, or to the work of authors who are cited in the bibliography but not in the index. The author might have done much more with scholarly literature in ethics and biblical ethics to deepen his analysis in various places. For example, he does mention the work of Anne W. Stewart (who again is not findable via the index) as he discusses moral choice and violence, but equally relevant is the work of Bible scholars Carol A. Newsom and Jacqueline Lapsley, both of whom explore moral agency with depth. The work of philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum would also have been relevant to many threads in the study, for example, her work on disgust, a theme he relates to representations of impurity. Lynch is deeply interested in the ways “social scripts” operate, but I see no reference to the seminal work of Erving Goffman.

In his treatment of key biblical passages, I do not think he adequately makes the case that the Cain and Abel story does not offer potential appropriators a different view of capital punishment than the postflood instructions to Noah. The author may be guilty of seeing a theological whole where there is difference, an indication of the varying world views of biblical composers. His treatment of Ezekiel 24 misses out on an opportunity to deal with gender and defilement, an important feature of Ezekiel's way of looking at the world. The language in this vision uses terminology and imagery of female defilement, a theme dear to Ezekiel and troubling for contemporary readers.

Despite these criticisms, the book is a good contribution to the study of violence in the Hebrew Bible. The author thinks in creative ways about biblical violence and specific texts, paying close attention to the meaning-rich nuances of the language employed by the ancient composers.