Hengel has used a multitude of sources, including the pertinent primary material. By his own admission his account has not produced a uniform, easily understood, uncontradictory picture. But he has, I believe, achieved his purpose of avoiding the two extremes which would either have Judaism uninfluenced, remaining true to the Old Testament, or yielding to syncretism, being permeated by Hellenistic thought. This book is indispensable to those interested in the development of Judaism and the birth of Christianity. Carl Schultz Houghton College ISAAC IBN EZRA O ^.Ed. Menahem . Schmelzer. Pp. 171. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1980. Isaac Ibn Ezra was the son of Abraham Ibn Ezra, renowned Bible com mentator, poet, philosopher, etc., and (in all probability) the son-in-law of Judah ha-Levy, an equally famous poet and writer. Thus, his poetry is of more than passing interest. A tentative edition was done by Naftali Ben Menahem (Jerusalem, 1950), long out of print and hard to obtain. Since that time, additional poems have come to light and been published in various places. Most importantly, however, the famous contemporary Silvera ms. (so-called after its owner, who jealously guarded it for years and refused all attempts to gain scholarly access to it) was finally acquired by JTS in New York. Scholars are well aware of the history of this manuscript and the long efforts to gain access to it. We are indeed fortunate that such a competent scholar as Dr. Menahem Schmelzer, the gracious and ever-helpful librarian of JTS, has edited anew the poetry of Isaac Ibn Ezra from this manuscript and has provided us with a general description of it. The introduction is brief but thorough and avoids advancing questionable theories or taking sides in the continuing debate as to whether the poet did or did not convert to Islam. The Hebrew style is flawless and smooth, un marked by the pedantic use of Americanisms in Hebrew guise which mar so much contemporary Israeli writing. The text of the poems is printed in an extremely pleasing and clear Hebrew font. The notes are thorough and extensive, and it is perhaps unfortunate that because of this it was necessary to place the notes at the end of the book, following the text, rather than on the same page as the poem itself, in the manner employed by Schirmann and Dov Jarden. This would have required a larger format for the book, but may have been worth the added expense. It should be mentioned that the various abbreviations of names found in the notes are to be found alphabetically within the bibliography at the end of the book; i.e., there is no separate listing of abbreviations, nor is attention called to this fact anywhere. This should present no problem to the scholar familiar with Hebrew poetry, but for the non-specialist it is perhaps a bit troublesome. Appendix I contains a list of the poems previously attributed to the poet which are not found in the Silvera ms., and therefore are dubiously attributed. Fortunately, and quite correctly, Dr. Schmelzer has included all of these poems also in the index of poems. This should have also been the practice of Jarden and others who have deleted poems from their editions with no indication of this fact in the index or, in some cases, elsewhere in 198