The SBL Handbook of Styl e is precisely what is needed for the next generation or two or three of scholars in our field and for everybody in the chain from author to editor to printer, including all the half steps in between. I hope that The Handbook will draw together everybody who publishes in this field to agree to adopt it as the bible for publishing scholarly works in our discipline. I could not be more enthusiastic about a volume that I can recommend to one and all, and to which I can send innocent, ignorant, and recalcitrant authors and editors, and all the rest. This volume should substantially reduce the incidence of tears and tantrums that so often beset the process of manuscript preparation.
All editors have to do is to learn what is here.
David L. Petersen, Ph.D ., is professor of Old Testament at Illiff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado, and Chair, SBL Research and Publications. This invaluable reference defines concepts, religious practices, theological terms, persons, places, and essential vocabulary from the writings of Judaism, ranging from the time of the Pentateuch's final formation until the close of the Babylonian Talmud. Over 3,300 entries by seventy international scholars offer historical, literary, religious, and archaeological background for understanding the canonical form of the Bible, the texts of the Second Temple period, and the classical writings of rabbinic Judaism. The scope of this volume includes, among other things, information on Philo and Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mishnah, and the Talmud, as well as key figures in the history of both Judaism and early Christianity. The Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period offers a reliable guide to the wealth of material useful for reading the Holy Scriptures.