Ezekiel is one of the few books of the Ethiopic Old Testament of which no critical edition has hitherto existed, and the aim of this work is to fill that gap. It provides a critical edition of the oldest accessible text of the Geez version and is based on a collation of fifteen manuscripts. The Ethiopic version is a daughter version of the Septuagint, and the work sheds light on the character of the original translation and on its subsequent history. The latter included the revision of the translation in the early mediaeval period, which was in part influenced by a Syriac-based Arabic version, and a further revision of the translation based on the Masoretic text.

Bringing together as it does papers delivered at the 1986 and 1987 meetings of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas Pseudepigrapha Seminar, this collection takes as its theme the Testament of Job. For much of the modern period the Testament of Job has been one of the lesser-known pseudepigraphic products of early Judaism, and this book attempts to remedy the deficiency of scholarly material in the area with a well-balanced treatment of its central concerns. Approximately the length of the New Testament book of Romans, the Testament celebrates the virtue of patience through a folkloristic elaboration of the Biblical story of Job. Yet the Testament adopts from the Biblical story scarcely more than the framework, much of it highlighting themes unusual in both early Christian and early Jewish writings. From the viewpoint of the history of religions it is of interest for its image of Satan, its ecstaticism and its emphasis on magic; it sheds light on the Jewish background of the early Christian phenomenon of glossolalia; and it is intriguing because of the remarkable role it assigns to women. The contributors to this volume are all distinguished scholars, and they provide an accessible introduction to this relatively neglected ancient document.

This book provides a new translation of substantial extracts from the Qumran writings, which comprise an important part of the Dead Sea scrolls. The writings reflect the beliefs and practices of a religious community which existed on the shores of the Dead Sea between the middle of the second century BC and AD 68. They shed considerable light on the Essenes, whose movement had an important focus at Qumran. In addition to selecting the most significant legislative, poetic and liturgical writings, Professor Knibb provides a commentary dealing with major interpretative problems raised by the extracts.