John Byron's New Book

My good friend, mentor, and fellow blogger, John Byron, has a new monograph coming out from Brill Publishers in February. The title is Cain and Abel in Text and Tradition: Jewish and Christian Interpretations of the First Sibling Rivalry .  

Here is a description of the book:

The story of Cain and Abel narrates the primeval events associated with the beginnings of the world and humanity. But the presence of linguistic and grammatical ambiguities coupled with narrative gaps provided translators and interpreters with a number of points of departure for expanding the story. The result is a number of well established and interpretive traditions shared between Jewish and Christian literature. This book focuses on how the interpretive traditions derived from Genesis 4 exerted significant influence on Jewish and Christian authors who knew rewritten versions of the story. The goal is to help readers appreciate these traditions within the broader interpretive context rather than within the narrow confines of the canon.



Unfortunately for John, this 266 page book is retailing for $146!  I do, however, recommend that you check it out at your theological library, and then buy it when it becomes available on paperback. John is one of the most astute scholars of the Second Temple era, so it would be well worth a read.