This book considers the ethical principals of Jesus and the early Christians, arguing particularly that Jewish law had ongoing significance for the Christian community as it took on a more Gentile character. After a brief orientation to the book, there follow nine essays, mostly previously published although some are new.

Part one relates to ‘Christianity in the land of Israel’. The first brief chapter claims that Jesus did not distance himself from Jewish ‘halakhah’ (legal material) as is frequently claimed. Bockmuehl believes that Jesus gives priority to written Torah which itself provides the ‘fence for the Torah’ (compare the Mishnah tractate ‘Avoth’ 1:1). The second chapter considers Matthew’s ‘divorce texts’ in the light of Jewish literature. Bockmuehl draws on OT texts and Qumran material to argue that ‘Matthew’s Gospel is indebted to this tradition and therefore teaches that porneia makes husband and wife unfit for continued conjugal union’ (21). The third chapter is a stimulating study of Jesus’ words to a prospective follower: ‘Let the dead bury their dead’, which begins with M. Hengel’s important study (and also E.P. Sanders who follows Hengel) before challenging his view on the grounds that Jesus demands no more than was demanded of High Priests or Nazirites. Lastly, in this part, chapter four considers James’ involvement in the so-called ‘Antioch Incident’ (Gal. 2).

The essays in part two are brought under the banner of ‘Jewish and Christian ethics for gentiles’. Chapter five considers ‘natural law’ in Second temple Judaism. A survey of OT material is followed by discussion of material from the apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic literature, Philo and Josephus. Chapter six picks up the ‘natural law’ theme with respect to the NT. Having considered various texts from the Gospels, Acts and Paul, Bockmuehl concludes that observations from the created order are freely used in moral instruction while there remains a keen awareness that the whole created order is in need of redemption. Bockmuehl’s seventh chapter investigates how one may speak of ethics to a ‘largely indifferent or adversarial public’ (145) by means of a discussion of the so-called ‘Noachide Commandments’. This term refers to the Rabbinic category of commandments given prior to Sinai to all of humanity without distinction, developed from the biblical laws for resident aliens in Israel.

The remaining two essays form part three, entitled ‘the development of public ethics’. Chapter eight is concerned with the significance of a distinct public identity for Christianity on Christian apologetics. In particular, it considers ‘public ethics’, defined as ‘the explication and defence of Christian morality in terms that were communicable and intelligible within a wider Graeco-Roman moral discourse’ (184). Finally, chapter nine is a brief study of the possibilities of comparison between Jewish and Christian ‘public ethics’. The book concludes with forty pages of bibliography and useful indices.

Bockmuehl spends much of his time discussing non-canonical texts and does so in a sure-footed manner. When he turns to the biblical texts he treats them carefully although the standard language of mainstream biblical scholarship (e.g. with respect to matters of authorship) is employed without comment. Greek and Hebrew fonts are used throughout the book but not usually in a way that will prevent a reader without facility in these languages from understanding the point. More demanding may be the occasional untranslated German word (e.g. p. 17) and unexplained technical terms (e.g. baraita [authoritative Rabbinic sayings not included in the Mishnah] and gezerah shawah [a Rabbinic method of interpretation linking texts by common words]) and the general pitch of the discussion. This is an important volume for research students and scholars, containing lots of helpful information and thoughtful discussion on the significance of the OT for Christian ethics. It will probably be heavy-going for most undergraduates.

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