Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament, The

The Holy City: Jerusalem in the Theology of the Old Testament. By Leslie J. Hoppe. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2000, 191 pp., $17.95 paper.

The book begins (chap. 1) with a short review of the importance of Jerusalem in Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. The thesis here is that Jerusalem is a topic of urgent importance to the three faiths. It is prominent in Jewish prayers and devotion. Christians made it a place of pilgrimage from the early centuries. Islam uses Jerusalem to proclaim its supremacy over Christianity. The outcome of the review is that Jerusalem is a place of intractable conflict between the religions.

There are good observations about the theological differences between early Jewish and Christian perceptions of the city in relation to the "heavenly Jerusalem," with Christians ready to allegorize and therefore to diminish the city's importance. However, the interest lies more on the historical significance of theological differences than on theological analysis itself.

The ensuing chapters focus in turn on Zion/Jerusalem in the Psalms, the Deuteronomic tradition, Isaiah 1-39, other preexilic and exilic prophecies of judgment, "Second Isaiah," the restoration, and visions of the "New Jerusalem." This last section deals with "apocalyptic" texts, which here include Isaiah 24-27, 56-66, as well as pseude-- pigraphical works and the Dead Sea Scrolls. A final chapter turns to the books of Maccabees, Judith, Baruch, Jubilees, under the title "The Liberated City."

What does the author do with all the material? For the most part the discussions are in terms of the biblical "horizon." The conclusions to each chapter mainly describe how the books in question treated the Zion hope. At this level the book is informative and useful, and so would make a good text for focused exegetical discussion on the topic of Jerusalem in the OT. I have some quibbles (for example, the disjunction made between "Servant" and "Zion" in Isaiah 40-55). However, issues of this sort are the stuff of ongoing exegetical debate.

The more important question posed by the book is how to draw conclusions for theology out of the variety of material encountered. This larger question is not faced directly to the extent that one might expect. It surfaces, for example, in the conclusions to the final chapter, where the danger is recognized of "[extrapolating] the perspectives of one strand of the tradition into universally valid theological principles" (p. 161). The author's answer there is to prefer attitudes of non-resistance to "nationalism." This kind of resolution can raise as many problems as it solves. How, if at all, might we learn from the more war-like parts of the OT? Do we in any case rightly understand any of the texts reviewed as promoting "nationalism," or in any other modern categories? The hermeneutical danger, as always, is that we find in the biblical text a justification for views that we already hold on other grounds. The present volume can serve as a prelude to theological discussion of the significance of Jerusalem, but it does not venture very far onto the ground of that discussion itself.

This prompts the final comment that the catalyst for the book's analysis-the thesis that Jerusalem is a topic of urgent importance for the three faiths-finds few strong echoes in the performance or the conclusions. An "Epilogue," focused on 2 Baruch, finds that both Judaism and Christianity in their different ways subordinated Jerusalem and temple to matters closer to the heart of the respective faiths (pp. 166-67). This is true as far as it goes. But I wonder whether the author's broadly inclusive target audience ("people of faith," p. 161) has attenuated the theological project. If the book is conceived as an exercise in reconciliation among the faiths, it may be that such a goal militates against interesting theological development.

J.G. McConville

University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK

Copyright Evangelical Theological Society Dec 2002
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