114 - Holiness in Israel

Holiness in Israel

By John G. Gammie

Minneapolis, Fortress, 1989. 215 Pp. $12.95.

Part of the Overtures To Biblical Theology series, this book "constitutes a thematic analysis of holiness in the Old Testament and select parts of ancient Judaic literature." The book examines the various ways in which holiness was understood by priests, prophets, sages, and apocalyptists. Gammie argues the thesis that these four major groups/traditions were united in the conviction that God's holiness required a "cleanness on the part of human beings" but were divided over the question of what kind of cleanness was necessary. I found the chapters on the priestly understanding of holiness and the section on Job to be especially rich and provocative.

The book is a welcome contribution to biblical theology in its attempt to demonstrate that "the concept of the holiness of God is a central concept in the Old Testament." But there is more to it than this. Against the modern tendency to regard the concept of God's holiness as archaic and irrelevant, Gammie pushes the point that "the loss of a sense of the divine holiness would constitute an abandonment of the God of Moses, Isaiah, and Job."

Brooks Schramm. Faith Lutheran Church, Augusta, Ill.