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other issues further. Occasionally I found myself wishing that she had extendedclaims as far as she suggests she might have, that she had provided more evidencefor various claims, that she had considered more potential implications of someclaims, and that she had used a greater number of specific examples in order tovivify and clarify general claims.

But this book is essentially a printed series of lectures, and, as Cameron herselfpoints out, in the lectures she could try to do little more than "to make a series ofsuggestions ... [which] attempt to present a coherent, if partial, view of the whole"(6). As I noted above, these suggestions are enlightening and intriguing, and Cameronbuttresses them with a most helpful range of notes and references. In this book,then, Cameron reconstructs much of the story of how various kinds of discoursecontributed to the nature and spread of Christianity. She also Invites others to helpreconstruct the rest of that story.

William I. Vande KoppleCalvin College

The Bible and the Literary Critic. By Amos N. Wilder. Philadelphia: FortressPress, 1991. ISBN 0-8006-2436-X. Pp, xiv + 186. $12.95.

Amos N. Wilder gathers together here some of his latest contributions to thecampaign for the twentieth-century appropriation of the Bible by literary critics andtheologians. Eight of the eleven chapters of the book have been previously pub-lished, only two dating earlier than the 1980s.

The book Is divided into three parts. The Ilrst three chapters review some con-temporary literary criticism of the Bible, the longest a response to Frank Kermode'sThe Genesis ofSecrecy (1979). The next three consist of Wilder's reminiscences ofInfluential twentieth-century New Testament scholars, somewhat Interesting be-cause of his personal acquaintance with most of the figures (for example, AlbertSchweitzer). The final section returns to issues raised by postmodernlsm, particu-larly narrative theory. These chapters also discuss the parables, the possibility of a"Christian discrimination" (111) or criticism of the arts, and the problems posed byviewing Scripture as primarily myth or history.

In chapter one Wilder reviews George Steiner's and Donald Davie's reviews ofRobert Alter and Kermode's The Literary Guide to the Bible (1987). Wilder is con-cerned to defend his own praise of the Guide against these two much more reservedcritiques. Though a review of reviews risks pedantry, It may be helpful if the workreviewed is important enough, and the Alter and Kermode collection is such a book.The problem with a strictly literary approach to the Bible, Steiner and Davie con-tend, is that It fails to account for the transcendental or numinous qualities that setthe Bible apart from other literary works. For Steiner the literary approach resultsin "blandness"; Scripture is "cocooned In academic poise and urbanity" rather thanengaged in a sublime dialogue. Beyond that, literary analysis cannot account forthe Bible's kerygmatic character-its call to radical commitment-nor for the par-ticularity of its claims. This is not a new distinction; T. S. Eliot, C. S. lewis, andNorthrop Frye, among others, have maintained as much. But Wilder insists thatAlter and Kermode's book is a good start toward the literary understanding of theBible's transcendental features; however, he admits the need for "special anten-nae," which most critics lack, to be able to appreciate the "stunning epiphanies and

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prodigies," "unfathomable voices," and "unwonted range of discourse" (8) In theBible.

In chapter two Wildcr challenges Kcnnodc's reading of the Gospel of Mark as"enigmatic" and riddllng and disputes also the Indetenninacy theory of narrativeand "radical epistemological skepticism" (30)underlying it. For Wilder the expecta-tions set up by Mark's eschatological genre and its historical referentiality to theRoman world are evidence that the Gospel writer does not attempt to be mysteri-ous. His characterization of Kennode's hermeneutic as "minimalist" and restrictivereveals his general perspective throughout the book that the Bible resists limitationby any critic or school of criticism. He observed earlier that "the canonical [Scrip-ture) texts might well blunt the tools of the literary critic" (3).

Modem criticism's problem with language as a reliable vehicle of meaning Isone of the book's main issues. But the Bible Is a foil for this llnguistic skepticism.From its emphasis on narning by God and Adam, to that on the ordering function ofspeech in the exemplum of Babel, to its Hebraic sense of rootedness in concretereality, the Bible affirms the purposefulness, hence the essential significance, ofspeech. For Wilder the "basic drive to establish meaning underlies all signifyingand discourse" (47), a position he reasserts ln the fmal chapter.

The epigraph heading It warns, "Meflez-vous de l'abyssal autant que du celeste."The privileging of contradiction, paradox, and enigma In tcxts is mcrely a sign ofcontemporary Gnosticism, according to WIlder. He challenges the suspicion ofnarrative tclcology, of "a sense of an ending," as well as thc seeming nihilism be-hind the attempt to undermine linguistic coherence in, for example, Joyce's orBeckett's grammatical solipsism, by urging the Inescapability of "reference . . . theground of communication" (182). Once a writer refers to any kind of Identifiablehuman reality or experience, he or she has committed an act of communication;and once that is done, all relationship, give-and-take, speech, dialogue, logic, tradi-tion, art, and culture are validated. It Is this I-Thou quality, qulnressentlally mani-fested In thc Bible, the book of the spoken and heard word, of the God who speaksto His people, which Is the foundation of Wilder's optimism. (it Is a pity then that,despite his belief in communication, much of the book Is written in a style that isabstract, overwritten, and sometimes incoherent.)

For literary scholars Wilder's middle section on his personal reminiscences ofcertain eminent twcnticth-ccntury theologians will not be compelling reading.Wilder was personally acquainted with some of the heavyweights; he reveals thatthey were, after their fashion, believers, a part of the wide spectrum of Christianexpression which he accepts. Wilder has some interesting things to say about thedifferent emphases of the Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and Union divinity schools-forexample, that Chicago had an "allergy" (68) to nee-orthodoxy during the 1940s.There is an entire chapter on Schweitzer.

One of the main evaluative frames Wllder uses to assess the legacy of thesetheologians is their stand on the apocalyptic strain In the New Testament, which IsWilder's own specialty. Related to this subject Is the matter of faith versus history.How close is the connection between the teachings of the historical Jesus and NewTestament dogma? This dichotomy was a major preoccupation of the theologiansWilder discusses.

But the Issue of the historical Jesus crosses over Into literary territory In respectto the parables. Some theologians prefer the "less mysterious Jesus" (l08) of thesimple didactic, even subversive, stories, claiming that the parables represent theauthentic Jesus and contain his original teachings, whereas his prophetic andeschatological discourses were later accretions, a preference which reveals a mod-

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ern bias for social and political over religious content. But Wl1der-and here hedemonstrates his essentially historicist hermeneutic of reading in contrast to thatof modern subjectivists-insists that the visionary outlook is typical of Jesus' timeand of biblical tradition. and in no conflict with the Jesus of the parables.

In an all too brief discussion Wilder considers the validity of a Christian criti-cism. While acknowledging the desirability of being "continually open" to otherperspectives and rejecting dogmatic criteria. he argues for the advantages of theo-logical insight and for the uniqueness ofthe "language-world" of Scripture. (Thoughhe does not state It explicitly. he is thinking especially of visionary modes of thoughtand language.) The Christian or theological critic should not feel his or her perspec-tive is of no consequence, even though literary studies are decidedly secular thesedays and have expunged the religious dimension from the agenda. But "the Marx-ists. the structuralists. and the aestheticists" (112) have no reluctance to promotetheir convictions. so neither should the religionist.

In the last three chapters Wilder considers the cultural assumptions and valuesthat underlie storytelling. His intention is to rescue the Bible from being dismissedas "mere fiction" which, in part. he would agree it is. But he wishes to legitimate allnarrative, no matter how fantastic, and explain its larger social function. Fiction (ormyth) meets a basic human need for "orientatlon" (142),helping both to illuminatethe answers to the mystery of llfe and to define the questions. It also expressesinherent cultural givens. But Erich Auerbach. Lewis. and Frye have all done thisbefore and better than Wilder because of their much wider frame of literary refer-ence. (Wilder cites the work of Beckett to illustrate a point or two.) Though hemakes a higher critical concession to the fictional nature of some biblical storiesand details. Wilder is also willing to assert the historical truth of the Scriptures. Hisargument is qualified. however: the personal reminiscences, eyewitness accounts,and "gossip" of which the Gospels, for example. are composed provide theoreticallyvalid data since they represent contemporary reactions to the person of Iesus. Fur-thermore. the Gospels are being held up to an unfair standard: all history. even"scientlflc" or formal analysis. is slanted. Still, compared with the subjective criteriaby which some theologians dismiss portions of the Gospels because they do notmatch their a priori conception of Jesus. Wl1der's views on the subject are moder-ate.

Overall, what will be appealing about the book for many readers of Christianityand Literature is Wilder's rational and sensible critique of some of the excesses ofpostmodem theory.

William F. GentrupArizona State University

Job the Silent: A Study in Historical Counterpoint By Bruce Zuckerman. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-19-505896-8. Pp. xii + 282. $29.95.

In this rigorously and carefully argued study. Bruce Zuckerman advances theview that the book of Job is a multiauthored work composed at various historicaltimes by authors advancing views on Job and his relations with God which are verymuch the product of specific and varying historical traditions, circumstances, andconditions. Thus. the subtitle is designed to suggest both sharp oppositions be-tween related but distinct themes and also more melodic interweaving of thematic