338 - Anger in the Old Testament. Bruce Edward Baloian

Anger in the Old Testament. Bruce Edward Baloian
By American University Studies
Series VII, Theology and Religion, Vol. 99, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1992.225 pp. $40.95.

Bruce Baloian, who teaches in the department of Religion and Philosophy at Azusa Pacific University, defines his task in the present work as "an endeavor to do Old Testament Biblical Theology with regard to the subject of anger." Because the Old Testament understanding of divine anger is "couched in anthropomorphic terms," the study begins with a canonical survey of the motivations, results, and purposes of human anger before it takes a similar approach to the subject of divine anger. In the third major section, Baloian attempts to "correlate" or "integrate" the results of these two exegetical investigations.

Taking up the topic of divine wrath in reference to human anger is a helpful strategy, and it stands out as a constructive contribution to the field. One indeed expects that a better understanding of human wrath as it is portrayed in the Old Testament will "help in ascertaining the proper method of discerning the text's intention in regard to God's anger." The reader soon discovers, however, that more distinctions than similarities are highlighted in Baloian's treatment. Although biblical texts speaking of human and divine anger have in common such elements as their emphasis on personal relationships and their concern for anger's potentially destructive nature, the correspondence ultimately breaks down. Whereas humans have difficulty controlling their anger, find themselves behaving irrationally in the heat of anger, and often commit sins of passion, divine anger is always rational and just. Here Baloian positions himself in the camp of

339 - Anger in the Old Testament. Bruce Edward Baloian

those who argue that Yahweh's wrath is consistently meted out either against the enemies of Israel for persecuting the chosen people of God or against Israel herself for covenant violations; in other words, the exercise of divine anger is never irrational or capricious. One wonders what other theological conclusions might have followed if Baloian had found divine and human anger to be more similar.

The book as a whole provides a readable entry into a complex discussion. Its accessibility to those outside the field will be hampered by the frequent appearance of untranslated Hebrew words and phrases. It is precisely this careful use of Hebrew, however, both in the body of the text and in the appendices, that makes Baloian's book a valuable resource for those who wish to pursue the topic in more detail.

Deborah Hannay Sunoo
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ.