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356 ]ournal o Biblical Literaturee.g., that the Law was debated among and between Jewish groups and that charismaticleaders were not unknown in first-century Judaism. But conflicts over Law or charismaneed not lead to death sentences. It is not unexpected that the last line of the volumereads: tragically the central mysteries of the gospel, the Messiah who suffers death on across and the centrality of that death to the realization of the kingdom, violated Jewishpreconceptions and thus prohibited their reception of the gospel (cf. Rom 9:32- 33).

Hagner presents an erudite, thoughtful, close reading. His passion is evident, andhis commentary is enjoyable to read. To literary-critical, sociological, or cultural-anthro-pological studies of Matthew, particularly if undertaken within an evangelical context,Hagner provides a good companion volume. To those interested in the Christian goodnews, Hagner provides rich details while at the same time offering well-placed warningsof the dangers of dispensationalism and triumphalism. To those who would teach andpreach this Gospel, such warnings need to be juxtaposed to the volume's presentation ofJudaism. Commentaries are by their nature conservative, and Hagner's work is true tothe various connotations of that term.

Amy-Jill LevineVanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235

The New Moses: A Matthean Typology by Dale C. Allison, Jr. Minneapolis: Fortress,1993.Pp. xvi+396.N.P.

Scholars will welcome Allison's book as the most thorough treatment to date of thetheme of the new Moses in Matthew's Gospel. The thesis he propounds is thatMatthew, through his use of traditions and for his own historical and theological reasons,consciously imbued his narrative about Jesus with a host of allusions to Moses and thusconstructed an extensive Moses typology.

Allison begins with the familiar argument that Matthew was a Jewish rabbi turnedChristian teacher who wrote his Gospel as a catechetical aid. As Matthew saw it, historyis not a random flux of events with no predetermined end but a redemptive processguided by divine providence that exhibits the pattern of type and antitype. Key to thispattern is the notion that the end of time will be like the beginning of time. Also, thesituation of Matthew was that of the Christian mission and the influx of Gentile convertsinto a Jewish church. Hence, to construct a communal history that would enable thismixed ch urch to preserve its identity, Matthew used typology to anchor it to its roots in

ancient Jewish history. He thus presents Jesus, the son of David and of Abraham, as ful-filling the prophecies of the Jewish Bible and being like Moses. The upshot is thatMatthew, in depicting Jesus as the new Moses and heir of Jewish religion, likewise vali-dates the church as heir.

Allison notes that before, during, and after the age of Matthew, Moses served inJewish literature as a type for other religious figures. Indeed, Moses-typology, Allisonasserts, was already embedded in the traditions Matthew inherited. Add to this the obser-vation that Matthew was no literary innovator and that he and his readers were steeped inthe Jewish Bible, and one must conclude that it is those scholars inclined to play down thepresence of Moses-typology in Matthew's Gospel who have thus far erred.

Moses-typology, Allison insists, can be found throughout Matthew's Gospel: it

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ookReviews 357

gives shape to chapters 1-7 and is apparent in the great thanksgiving (11:25-30), thenarrative of the transfiguration (17:l-9), and the great commission (28:1620). Verylikely, it is also detectable in the feeding stories (14:13-22; 15:29-39) and in the peric-opes on Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (21:l-17) and the last supper (26:17-25). Whatthese texts reveal is that, in Matthew's purview, Jesus is, like Moses of old, manythings : leader and king, savior and deliverer, teacher and revealer, intercessor and suf-fering prophet. Most especially, one should observe that Matthew begins his Gospelwith Moses-typologyand ends with it. The result is that Moses-typology sets the tone forthe whole of Matthew's Gospel and is prominent as it reaches its conclusion.

Alison's book is instructive and repays careful reading. In the application of typo-logical method to Matthew's Gospel, however, it claims more for itself than it candeliver. For example, although Allison provides guidelines for finding and markingtypology, readers may often sense that they are at sea in discerning how typologicalmethod can be applied with much certainty. There are two reasons for this. For onething, the nature of typology in ancient Jewish literature is allusive and Matthew's textis said to be a catena of allusions. For another thing, most of the literary devices thatsignal the presence of typology in a text-the indication that one event is meant to recalla previous event, the use of key words or phrases, the similarity of narrative structure,and the existence of patterns in word order, syllabic sequence, or poetic resonance--canbe notoriously difficult to pin down. The upshot is that whether or not one has in factdiscovered the existence of typology in a text seems in large measure to reside in thejudgment of the interpreter. Because Allison is aware of this, he suggests more thanonce that his readers will not be able to appreciate his labors unless they are as adept she at spotting Matthew's use of typology. This may be true, but it is likewise true that totake a position like this compels the interpreter not only to adopt a condescending atti-tude toward readers but also to concede that one cannot make one's case unless readersare disposed simply to take one at one's word. Readers w ll find this aspect of Allison'sstudy unsat isfpg .

Allison does not own up to the bane of his study until the end: the fact that, withinhis Gospel, Matthew refers explicitly to Moses only seven times and never once eithercompares Jesus to Moses or contrasts him with Moses. This does not mean that Moses-typology does not exist in Matthew's Gospel; it does mean, however, that, Allison'sprotestations notwithstanding, caution is in order when one attempts to assess thepotential significance of such typology.

This brings us to the next point: Allison, in contending that 1:1-8:1 of Matthew'sGospel was shaped by Moses-typology, that in the grand conclusion of his GospelMatthew colors Jesus in the hues of Moses (28:1620), and that throughout his GospelMatthew presents Jesus, after the example of Moses, as leader and king, savior anddeliverer, teacher and revealer, and intercessor and suffering prophet, claims much toomuch for the evidence he musters. To begin with assertions two and three, the notionthat 28:1620 exhibits Moses-typology requires no little imagination and, except forking, the designations just cited are not those by virtue of which Matthew invites read-

ers to know Jesus. Anyone who peruses Matthew's Gospel itself will quickly discoverthat Matthew is at pains to persuade readers to understand and confess Jesus not asnew Moses but as Messiah, Son of David, Son of Abraham, King of the Jews

[Israel], and, above all, Son of God. These latter constitute Matthew's explicit Chris-

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358 Journal of Biblical Literaturetology. Moreover, precisely because this explicit Christology stands out so strikingly in1:14:16, one demurs at accepting Allison's assurances that Moses-typology is what hasgiven shape to 1:1-8:1. But should the latter not be the case, the further argument that

Moses-typology sets the tone for the whole of Matthew's Gospel loses its cogency.In saying all this, I am not arguing that Allison's exegetical observations have nomerit. But given the circumstance that Matthew nowhere expressly compares Jesuseither with or to Moses and that the explicit Christology Matthew does develop reachesits climax in Jesus as the Son of God, I find it necessary to question not only the extentto which Allison has uncovered Moses-typology in Matthew's Gospel but also theexalted function he ascribes to it. My own view is that the way Matthew uses Moses-typology is better explained if one assumes that he found new-Moses Christology to betoo low to give it the prominence Allison wishes, a view that Allison would vigorouslyreject. Still, if I am correct about this, then the company of theologians among whomMatthew has his place would be good indeed: apparently Paul, and without questionJohn and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews.

Allison's book is learned and provocative. Its weakness, however, is that it pressesan otherwise worthy case to extreme.

Jack Dean KingsburyUnion Theological Seminary, Richmond, VA 23227

The Gospel and the Sacred: Poetics of Violence in Mark, by Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly.Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. Pp. xv 175. N.P. (paper).

In an earlier book (Sacred Violence: Paul s Henneneutic of the Cross [Minneapolis:Fortress, 19921) Hamerton-Kelly applied the mimetic theory of Ren6 Girard to Paulinetexts. In the present book, with a glowing foreword by Girard, Hamerton-Kelly turnsthis theory of sacred violence to practically the whole of Mark's Gospel. Girard's fore-word proposes: Whenever the theory is used intelligently as it is in this book, it tends todisappear behind the text, and . . . the language of 'application' falters (p.xi . In myreading I experienced the intelligence but found the theory very present in front of thetext and the language of application entirely applicable.

The work is presented in an introduction, six chapters, and an appendix. The intro-duction is crucial for understanding what follows, for it presents The Theory of SacredViolence as a Method of Interpretation. For the reader not familiar with the work ofGirard, this material offers a challenging but successful initiation. New initiates woulddo well to follow the tip given in the Preface and read the Appendix (on The GenerativeMimetic Scapegoating Mechanism [GMSM throughout the text]) before beginningchapter 1. The appendix leads one through the steps of the theory-from mimeticdesire, to scapegoating, to the double transference, to the sacred, ritual, and myth. TheGMSM is the social (natural?) process by which scapegoating occurs. Scapegoating inthe GMSM is the psychological propensity to relieve frustration by lashing out at some-one defenseless, or to avoid responsibility by blaming someone; it is the group's propen-sity to rescue or cement its solidarity by making an enemy, or the mob's propensity,especially at a time of social unrest, to fall upon a victim (p. 131).

Hamerton-Kelly begins his analysis of the Markan text not at the beginning of the