First Glance

The newly published book The Bible Code (Simon & Schuster) claims to have uncovered secret messages in the Bible, including a prediction of the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and even more dire predictions for the entire world. Book buyers are gobbling up copies like the proverbial hotcakes. At $25 per copy, how much do they have to lose? Answer: $25. The book’s slipshod math and numerous textual errors are exposed by Harvard University mathematician Shlomo Sternberg and BR book review editor and columnist Ronald Hendel in “The Bible Code: Cracked and Crumbling.”

Until recently scholars gave short shrift to a whole section of the Hebrew Bible. Classified as Wisdom literature, this section includes the books of Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Though it concerns the search for the meaning of life, no light topic, it was dismissed because it was considered “secular,” “nontheological” and tangential to the Hebrew Bible’s major theme of Israel’s salvation. Katharine J. Dell corrects these assumptions in “Wisdom Literature Makes a Comeback: Pursuing the Good Life,” showing, in the process, what these books can offer us today.

A fellow and tutor at St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge University, Dell teaches undergraduate courses in theology and religious studies. She is working on a book on the context and theology of early Wisdom literature.