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each on the remaining books of the kHublm. The treatment of each subject is necessarily brief and is rather conventional. Some statements of the author's raise the eyebrows, as that "the term 'apocalypse' is the Latin form of the Greek 'apocalypsis' " (p. 45), and that "Hebrew Wisdom literature is so-called because its a u t h o r s . . . were primarily concerned with promoting the welfare and happiness of men by instructing them in the knowledge of right living" (p. 63). This latter is true of Proverbs, but hardly of Job and Ecclesiastes. It may well be, as Henshaw says, that the Book of Job is "largely autobiographical," but it is rather startling to read that the author belonged to the "land of Uz" (p. 170). "The author's main purpose in writing the book," we are told, "was to reconcile the suffering of the righteous with the existence of a just God" (p. 158), but it "has had little influence on the development of religious ideas," though "valuable for the light it sheds on Judaism in the post-exilic period" (pp. 174-75). The defence of the wisdom writers against the charge of secularism that "they were, nevertheless, sincerely religious men and that their teaching had a religious basis" (p. 70) quite misses the point of the division between the traditional and the radical wings of the wisdom movement. Some curious errors have survived the proofreading, and appear to be slips of the author's pen rather than mistakes by the compositor: "The book in Hebrew is called 'Shirath Shirim,' Song of Songs" (p. 179); "Arabic" for "Aramaic" (p. 239; cf. footnote); "permanent" for "prominent" (p. 267). These are picayune points, but they are disturbing. The chief value of the book lies in its summarizing of a middle position in OT criticism, and in the compact appendices on a variety of relevant topics from Hebrew music to the Dead Sea scrolls.
R. B. Y. SCOTT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Did the Early Church Baptize Infants? by Kurt Aland, tr. with an Introduction by G. R. Beasley-Murray, with a Preface by John Frederick Jansen. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963. Pp. 120. $3.50. The Origins of Infant Baptism; A further study in reply to Kurt Aland, by Joachim Jeremas, tr. by Dorothea M. Barton. Naperville (111.): Allenson, 1963. Pp. 91. $2 (paper). Infant baptism has been under critical scrutiny in recent years in ecumenical circles generally and, following the strictures of Karl Barth about ecclesiastical praxis, especially on the European continent. In 1938 Joachim Jeremas published a pamphlet, expanded in editions of 1949 and 1958 and translated as Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) which attempted to reverse the modern critical orthodoxy of scholars like Harnack and Feine who held that infant baptism is not demonstrable for the apostolic or postapostolic ages but appears only after the end of the second century. Professor Kurt Aland, concerned as a historian about the increasing dominance of this view of Jeremas, viz., that infant baptism was a practice from the beginnings of the church, wrote an answer in 1961, to which

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Professor Jeremas in turn replied in 1962. Both monographs have now appeared in translation, with appropriate introductions to carry the debate to the Englishspeaking world. At two places the "ground rules" for the debate clearly differ. Terminologically, Jeremas chooses to discuss Kindertaufe and therefore adduces as evidence anything concerning the baptism of children prior to puberty; Aland confines himself to evidence for Suglingstaufe, the baptism of "sucklings" just after their birth. Here Jeremas has allowed himself more latitude than "infant" baptism usually suggests. Methodologically, Aland moves backward from the third century toward the NT "core"; Jeremas, on the other hand, seeks to move from the "earliest period," chronologically forward, to the end of the third century, with the NT determinative for measuring patristic views. In method Aland thus follows the procedure of Hans Lietzmann who, in Messe und Herrenmahl, thus worked backward from the patristic centuries to the NT period in investigating the Lord's Supper, whereas Jeremas follows certain recent investigators of early Christian worship by seeking to move forward from Jewish backgrounds. Both Jeremas and Aland agree that direct evidence for the baptism of children first appears in the third century. They disagree on the extent and interpretation of indirect evidence from the second and first centuries. Jeremas contends that already in this period (1) the children of converts joining the church were baptized; (2) of children born to Christian parents, (a) sons of Jewish Christians were circumcised and perhaps baptized too (cf. Acts 21 21, Col 2 11; concerning girls, the lack of both references in the sources and of analogy to Jewish practice prevents speculation), and (b) children of gentile Christians were being baptized by A.D. 60-70. Jeremas makes the best case possible historically from the often meager source material, but Aland shakes a good deal of his evidence and criticizes a tendency to let hypotheses "develop into established facts by which other hypotheses are supported" (p. 42). Jeremas gets in some especially effective replies in countering Aland's theory that the church was basically "adult" until about A.D. 200, when an influx of members with children and the birth of more children to members, coupled with a shift away from the idea of "the innocency of childhood" toward a concept of original sin, led to infant baptism; Jeremas scores any idea that Paul is Pelagius or that Pauline baptism was merely a washing. Both disputants are agreed, however, it should be noted, that infant baptism is needful and legitimate in the church today. Aland, quoting Luther, argues in a postscript that a concept of baptism must ultimately stem from one's understanding of the gospel and denies the view that "as it was in the first or second century, so must be the practice today." The discussion is sometimes made especially hard to follow by Jeremas' changing views from edition to edition. Writing in German in 1958, he concluded that the obscure verse at I Cor 7 14 implies that children born to Christian parents were not baptized; by the English translation of 1960 he had decided that the verse does not preclude their baptism. It is precisely this 1960 view which Aland discusses and attacks. The preface of Jeremas' 1962 reply naturally informs German readers that he had changed his view here since 1958, but when the English translation carries that statement over directly, it suggests a shift which Aland had either forced or not an-

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ticipated. A weak point in Aland is the way he passes rapidly over Mart. Pol. 9 3 ("86 years I have served him"), the one passage which the Oxford Patristic Greek Lexicon cites as possibly significant from the first two centuries (s.v. , VI. J. 1. a.). The form-critical possibilities behind Mark 10 13-16 do not seem taken seriously enough. Jeremas' sharply critical opinion of G. R. Beasley-Murray's Baptism in the New Testament (1962; cf. JBL, 82 [1963], pp. 339-41) ought be noted, if only because that large volume could assume the same dominance in English scholarship that Aland felt Jeremas' book threatened to have in the German-speaking world. Perhaps the unanswered question lurking behind the whole debate is the precise origin of Christian baptism even of adults. If the roots are in Jewish proselyte baptism, then Jeremas' approach and the use he makes of Jewish ritual materials (pp. 20 ff., 32, 37, 39) are justified. The Jeremas monograph inaugurates a new paperback series, edited by S. L. Greenslade, uniform with "Studies in Biblical Theology"; the Aland volume is dedicated to the Society of Biblical Literature.
JOHN REUMANN LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PHILADELPHIA

The Bronze Age Cemetery at Gibeon, by James B. Pritchard. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum, 1963. Pp. ix+180. $3.50. Dr. Pritchard provides a detailed technical report of the Bronze Age cemetery at El Jib within this short, but well-written and heavily documented monograph. He gives a brief description of the chance find of the cemetery area in 1960, a summary of the two seasons of work on the area, a good schematic presentation of the tomb statistics, and a summary of the classification systems (Kenyon, Tufnell, and Beck) adopted in the volume. The full description of each tomb, with plan, artifacts, and comparative data then follows. Rather thorough general comparative studies and conclusions complete the text of the volume. Pritchard suggests that the tombs of this cemetery were originally all MB I construction, with re-use in MB II and later (especially LB) times. The prevailing burial practice was apparently of the disarticulated type, paralleling Jericho "Pottery" tombs. The pottery forms of El Jib also parallel the same Jericho type, but the tomb plans resemble those of the Jericho "Dagger" group. It is therefore suggested that two or more MB groups fused at El Jib. The general funerary culture has parallels also with the Lachish Cemetery 2000 group. The catalogue of the monograph is extensive, including plans, pottery drawings, and photographs. The pottery drawings are excellent, as are the pottery photographs. The inclusion of description and comparative data next to the drawing plates is to be highly commended. More care might have been lavished on the placing of scale sticks in the photographs, but they are clear and illustrative. The general thoroughness of this monograph is most rewarding to the specialist, especially in regard to the comparative materials collected. Some study of the skeletal

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