book reviews 153 © 2008 The Authors Journal compilation © 2008 Association for the Journal of Religious History in two seventeenth-century manuscripts, poses significant challenges to the editors. Editorial decisions are never easy, and yet are a frequently overlooked intellectual component in the finished published work. Pleasingly here the editors explain in great detail the reasons behind their decision to create a synthetic edition, that is, an edition combining all of the extant manuscripts. While the editors acknowledge the trend in manuscript editing of mouvance, they state that “a synthetic approach to the manuscript evidence results in a more intellectually sophisticated representation of the text than the choice of either complete manuscript” (28). This, I do not feel, would be contested by anyone. Indeed each surviving manuscript does not, on its own, offer as much as a combined version might, but this does not necessarily require the editors to create what is essentially a “new” text. The concern raised by Paul Zumthor, Derek Pearsall, and other scholars about the critical edition is its implicit rigidity, the assumption of creating a definitive version when no such version ever existed. The creation of a synthetic edition does not change this, yet I note with some concern that the editors assume that “in some respects, indeed, this representation has a strong claim to approximate the definitive form of the work” (28). The editions presented in this volume are indeed excellent pieces of scholarship, and, given the intention of enabling both scholars and general readers to access the work, this, I would think, is sufficient reason for the creation of a synthetic edition of A Revelation of Love. One cannot pretend that such a creation necessarily represents a long-lost definitive version of the text, but the purpose here is surely to make Julian’s works accessible, and for this reason alone the synthetic edition seems justified. The presentation and layout of this book is feature worth noting, as the com- plexity of editing is frequently difficult to display on the printed page. The accom- panying appendices, textual end-notes, facing-page explanatory notes, and an analytic version of A Vision underneath the edition of A Revelation are excellent inclusions that provide assistance to the general reader and scholarly complexity for the academic reader. Simone Celine Marshall University of Otago William Yarchin: History of Biblical Interpretation. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004; pp. vii + 444. This collection presents the transformation of biblical interpretation from 150 b.c.e. to the end of the twentieth century. It is not a logical unity, but the numerous writings from different generations and geographies of the Christian church, with the introduc- tory commentary, are readable and informative for those who value “the Christian and Jewish exegetical traditions.” The aim of the author is to draw an historical picture of the methodological development or transition applied in the various commentaries of the Bible, despite no textual evidence being given for the three mediaeval periods of between 600 and 900 c.e. (300 years), between 950 and 1050 c.e. (100 years), and between 1350 and 1500 c.e. (150 years), possibly causing confusion or vagueness for contemporary readers. The first part of Prerabbinic Jewish Interpretation (150 b.c.e.–70 c.e.) introduces the concept that the sacred texts in the ancient world were read figuratively and allegorically , in that “God is the Speaker, humans are the writers, and (in that the) multiplicity of meaning (plain and obscure) is to be expected in the discursive space between what the words humanly say and what they divinely teach.” Based on this