Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Distinguishing Grabbe from Grabbe

I was looking for an affordable used copy of Lester L. Grabbe's important two-volume reference work, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, published by Fortress Press in 1992, but noticed (again) that he has another multi-volume series coming out with T&T Clark that appears to deal with the same material: A History of the Jews And Judaism in the Second Temple Period: Yehud: a History of the Persian Province of Judah (2004); A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: The Early Hellenistic Period (335-175 BCE) (2008). Is this a reprint, an updating and expansion, or something else entirely?

Also, what is the difference between An Introduction to First Century Judaism: Jewish Religion and History in the Second Temple Period (T&T Clark, 1996), and Introduction to Second Temple Judaism: History and Religion of the Jews in the Time of Nehemiah, the Maccabees, Hillel, and Jesus (T&T Clark, 2010)--aside from price?

I'm not knocking the scholarship; I just want to know whether it is still worth purchasing the older and now cheaper editions.

7 comments:

nicholas meyer said...

Have you thought about checking one of the many Intros to the NT out there?

Pat McCullough said...

Hi David, looks to me like the first duo is a volume one (Persian period), volume two (early Helenistic) scenario. If you look closely on the book covers on Amazon, you can see "Volume 1" and Volume 2." The subtitles also provide the clue.

As for the second duo, I think this one is a matter of an updated revision. In fact, when you search for the ISBN of the former on T and T Clark's website, it actually pulls up the listing for the latter, telling me that the former has lost its relevance with the coming of the second (at least in the publisher's perspective).

nicholas meyer said...

Oops, that comment was meant for the previous post :)

d. miller said...

That makes more sense!

d. miller said...

(Good idea, too.)

d. miller said...

Pat: Thanks for checking on the second duo. Wish I knew how much repetition there is in content between Grabbe's 1992 2-volume history with Fortress, and the new multi-volume multi-hundred dollar set being published with T&T Clark.

Ken Penner said...

I got the impression that the earlier work was like a beta version, a presentation of work in progress, which is now completed in the more recent work.