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Rowan A. Greer and Margaret M. Mitchell, translators The "Belly-Myther" of Endor: Interpretations of 1 Kingdoms 28 in the Early Church Writings from the Greco-Roman World 16 Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007 Pp. clviii + 189. $39.95.
Displaying texts and translations in facing-page format, this delightfully thorough and judicious jewel of scholarship provides a practically exhaustive, chronologically ordered anthology of contributions to Christian debates from the second to the fourth centuries over the meaning of Saul's recourse to necromancy in 1 Samuel 28. The tenth-century manuscript Monacensis graecus 331 preserves the texts forming the core of this collection: Origen's fifth homily on 1 Samuel, Eustathius of Antioch's treatise against that homily, and Gregory of Nyssa's letter to Theodosius on the scriptural episode in question. Selections from Justin's Dialogue with Trypho, Tertullian's De anima, and the Martyrdom of Pionius show clearly the earlier roots of these fourth-century discussions. Catena fragments from Apollinaris of Laodicea and Diodore of Tarsus help contextualize Gregory's continuation of the debate.
The translators might have added Ambrosiaster's Question 27 from his Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti, and one can regret that they did...