John Barton is one of those rare biblical scholars who has distinguished himself both as a historical-critical exegete and as a commentator on and participant in developing discussions relating to the method and character of biblical interpretation. The collection of essays gathered together in his honour in this attractively produced volume reflects the latter interest in particular and neatly illustrates both the richness and some of the tensions in that area of debate.

The editors have divided the volume up into two parts. Part i is entitled ‘Revisiting older approaches’. Many of these might be termed broadly historical-critical, despite the fact that one of the chapters is called ‘Historical criticism’. Under this umbrella term we might include the essays on source criticism (David Clines), form criticism (Stuart Weeks), redaction criticism (Hugh Williamson) and the essay on comparative Near Eastern study (John Day) as well Muddiman's essay on historical criticism. Most of these contributions, as with the rest of the volume, engage in the interpretation of a particular biblical text or set of texts to illustrate their thoughts on the method that they are discussing. A number of the essays question the viability and presuppositions of the method that they are exploring, while others cautiously endorse them, though to different degrees and on different grounds. Clines's negative piece on source criticism is perhaps more thoroughgoing than Weeks's on form criticism, though the overarching tone is critical. Other essays defend the method that they are discussing (Williamson) or simply show what might be derived from it (Day) or the complex choices it involves us in (Alison Salvesen on textual criticism). Muddiman's subtle contribution indicates both the extent to which different facets of the historical-critical method when applied to the New Testament show up the distance between the reader of that set of texts and the truth contained within it, and also the need for the quest for that truth. Other approaches discussed in this section are deemed ‘older’, I would assume because they deal in what might be termed more theological readings. Included among them are ‘The quest for the plain meaning’ by Susan Gillingham; ‘Canonical formation’ by Anselm Hagedorn; and two essays on ‘The Bible and the Church’ by R. Albertz and Gerhard Sauter, which concern, respectively, the work of Claus Westermann and the role of the Bible in systematic theology.

Part ii is entitled ‘Breaking the mould’. In it methods of interpretation normally associated with the more recent history of biblical criticism, and often conceived as correctives to, or even assaults upon, the historical-critical approach, are considered. So, inter alia, we have essays on liberationist reading (Christopher Rowland), sociological approaches (Daniel Smith-Christopher), intertextuality (Will Kynes), post-colonial interpretation (Mark Brett), materialist reading (Francesca Stavrokoplou) and the Bible and the arts (Katharine Dell). In a strikingly sober and thoughtful essay on feminist criticism, Paula Gooder argues that we should not seek to create a kind of clear-cut chronology of the development of Christian attitudes to women, beginning with the radical Jesus and ending with the patriarchal Paul and his successors. Rather we should take seriously the existence in one and the same writer and movement of what we today might consider conflicting ideas about women: ‘Paul and the early Christian communities can neither be written off as misogynist nor lauded as egalitarian.’ Gooder's essay, like a number in this section, demonstrates the way in which newer methods do in various ways utilise historical insights, and this comes across in a number of contributions. So Christopher Rowland, in his piece on liberationist readings, discusses the complex way in which such readings give priority to the situation of the reader, while seeking to take sufficient account of the integrity of the biblical text and its original context; and in one of the most interesting essays in the collection, which builds on Barton's cautionary distinction between the ethics of biblical books and the ethics of actual Israelite men and women, Andrew Mein examines the type of ethical reasoning evidenced in the Yavneh Yam letter, addressed to the Judahite governor and preserved on a seventh-century ostracon. It records the words, though not the script, of a poor Israelite requesting the return of his cloak which had been confiscated. Mein shows how the document illustrates the truth of Barton's cautionary observation in that the ostracon refers to no known laws in the Bible nor to God.

This is a carefully compiled and thoughtful collection, and an appropriate tribute to its honorand. It shows up the considerable diversity present in current biblical interpretation, and the creative tensions and interconnections which operate between the practitioners of different methods, creating a field of study which some would deem chaotic, others richly diverse, and some both. Many of its contributions, either implicitly or explicitly, engage with the old chestnut of the ongoing relevance and viability of historical approaches – in fact it is often the ghost in the room. In the Oxford Bible commentary, its editors, Barton himself, and John Muddiman, referred, as Paul Joyce reminds us in his own essay on psychological interpretation, to ‘chastened historical criticism’, chastened that is by ‘an awareness that its sphere of operations, though vital, is not exhaustive, and that other questions too may reasonably be on the agenda’. The contributions in this volume embody that point in its use of the terms ‘vital’ and ‘not exhaustive’.