The recent explosion of information regarding Jewish art in antiquity is due mainly to ongoing archaeological discoveries and a marked increase in scholarly activity on this topic. Although the volume's editor notes her specific interest in the relationship between Jewish art and the second commandment, many of the articles do not deal directly with this issue, focusing instead on a range of art-related issues throughout antiquity.

The first two articles address art in the biblical era. Philip Alexander discusses the original intention of the second commandment prohibition and theorizes when and why the aniconic component crystallized in early Judaism. He examines the place of the Deuteronomic emphasis on the ‘word’, as well as its importance and limitations, in later Jewish tradition. Hugh G. M. Williamson explores the notion that there may have been an image of God in the First Temple, concluding, on the basis of linguistic idioms and external evidence, that there is no solid proof in this regard. He does concede, however, that there may have been other images in the Temple (2 Kings 21:7; Ezekiel 16:17–18), but notes that these references do not refer to a permanent arrangement in the Holy of Holies or in the sanctuary.

The next two articles relate to Egypt: the first, by Jane Heath, focuses on the Letter of Aristeas's extensive description of the artwork commissioned by Ptolemy as gifts for the Jerusalem Temple. While many elements of these artifacts accord with widely attested Hellenistic tropes and trends, they also include elements of Jewish art pervasive at the time, thereby creating, Heath maintains, ‘a shared religious aesthetic … worthy of both the Greek king and the Jewish high priest’ (48). Sarah Pearce examines Philo's discussion of the second commandment, in which he emphasizes the absurdity of images intended to depict the transcendent Deity via material substances. Having polemicized against the ubiquitous idolatry in antiquity and especially animal worship in Egypt, Philo concludes that only through observance of the second commandment can one honour and acknowledge God properly.

Bridging the pre-and post-70 era, Margaret H. Williams links remains of the menorah in funerary settings, both in pre-70 Judaea and especially in post-70 Bet She‘arim and Rome, with the idea that this symbol was intended primarily for apotropaic purposes. This is followed by Tessa Rajak's presentation touching on many aspects of the richly decorated Dura synagogue. Beginning with a discussion of several scenes ostensibly attesting to tension between the Jews and their pagan neighbours (following Jaś Elsner), she then concludes by noting the community's ties with its surroundings and its apparent comfortableness within the larger Duran context. I would add that the uniqueness of this synagogue's art, unmatched in Jewish life throughout the ages and indeed until today, is similarly evidenced at this time in the nearby church and mithraeum of Dura, which, like their Jewish counterpart, used art to focus on the sacred history and heroes of each tradition (L. I. Levine, Visual Judaism in Late Antiquity: Historical Contexts of Jewish Art (2012), 74–9).

Sacha Stern returns to a topic he has treated in the past: rabbinic attitudes toward pagan motifs in Jewish art. Did the rabbis support such art, were they opposed or indifferent to it, or did they adopt an approach of benign neglect? Stern claims that the diversity of the rabbis on such issues was comparable to the diversity in attitudes toward images and their expression among the various Jewish communities of Late Antiquity, from Ḥammat Tiberias, Sepphoris and Bet Alpha on the one hand, to Reḥov, Jericho and ‘En Gedi on the other.

Zeev Weiss focuses on the Jewish community in Sepphoris, describing the extent to which the Jews adopted and adapted visual dimensions borrowed from the larger Roman society. While first-century Sepphoris appears to have been a fairly conservative Jewish city, by the second and third centuries (and beyond) the Jewish population became rather acculturated, having absorbed many aspects of Greco-Roman culture expressed, inter alia, by pagan motifs on the local coinage, by the Dionysus villa that might have belonged to R. Judah I himself, and by the collection of sculptural images found there.

The final articles of the volume are devoted to textual analyses of two very different types of literary sources. Laliv Clenman discusses several distinct rabbinic interpretations of Molech worship, one which views this ritual as child sacrifice to a faceless idol, the other as sexual relations with a gentile woman. The last article, by Aron C. Sterk, discusses a presumed fourth-century text embedded in a ninth-century manuscript, arguably written by Annas, a Jew from Rome or Ravenna. Therein Annas invokes Seneca while polemicizing against paganism and Christianity. Sterk concludes that Annas’ dialogue with Seneca ‘attempts to establish a commonality of interest between the Jewish and pagan communities, a philosophical and political alliance in the face of a growing Christian hegemony’ (181).

This volume is well edited and impressively produced. The illustrations are of very good quality, the indices and bibliography are comprehensive, and the contributors are by and large leading scholars in their fields. However, it would have been helpful for all readers had there been footnotes and not the much more cumbersome endnotes. Moreover, given the wide chronological and geographical scope of the topics and the relative brevity of the contributions, the reader is left with a sense of diffuseness, a situation not helped by the fact that the supposed unifying theme articulated by the editor is never fully carried out. Nevertheless, the wide scope of the articles in this volume succeeds in addressing many basic issues in the study of ancient Jewish art and thus presents the reader with information and insights regarding many of the major questions currently under consideration.