Schulte sees the Yahwist as essentially
a compiler of older traditions: some of
them oral, others written; some of them
pertaining to a single tribe or locality,
others already reflecting the concept of
"all Israel." One should, therefore, not
expect to find "Yahwistic" characteris-
tics and tendencies spread evenly
throughout the Yahwistic history, but
primarily in redactional elements and
in certain narratives which the Yahwist
revised more thoroughly than others in
order to provide continuity to his work.
He reaffirms the hypothesis of his for-
mer professor G. Holscher that Yahwis-
tic materials are to be found beyond the
Pentateuch as far as I Kings 12. In
fact, he sees the Yahwist as the major
compiler of the narratives in Judges and
I-II Samuel, whose work has simply
been overlaid and expanded by the deu-
teronomistic redactor. The "Court His-
tory" is the latest of four rather extensive
blocks of material which the Yahwist
combined to produce his account of the
early days of the monarchy. Although
Schulte is cautious about tracing the
Yahwistic history beyond this point
(i.e., I Kings 2 ) , he suspects that Solo-
mon was presented in a slightly less fa-
vorable light than David and that the
Yahwist concluded his history with a
brief account of the division of the king-
doms.
Schulte's study serves as an effective
reminder that the matter of the extent
of the Yahwistic tradition, and thus its
overall structure and purpose, is far
from settled. It also illustrates that any
proposed solution to this problem will
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234
necessarily involve a significant amount
of subjective judgment. Schulte's own
approach is certainly reasonable, and
his analyses of the crucial texts carefully
done. Yet few scholars will be able to
accept his conclusions regarding indi-
vidual texts without at least occasional
objections. Unfortunately his evalu-
ation of the Yahwistic work as a whole
will not tolerate a great deal of variation
in this regard.
J. M A X W E L L M I L L E R
Candler School of Theology
Emory University
• The Secret Gospel: The Discovery
and Interpretation of the Secret Gos-
pel According to Mark, by MORTON
SMITH. Harper & Row, Publishers,
New York, 1973. 148 pp. $5.95.
T H E SOMEWHAT sensational claims
made for this book are ill founded. It
is, nevertheless, an important book. It
does three things: ( 1 ) It tells the story
of a scholar making an important dis-
covery; (2) It describes the discovery, a
fragment of a letter of Clement of Alex-
andria against the Carpocratian Gnos-
tics, which quotes from a previously-
unknown "secret gospel of Mark;" (3)
It develops an elaborate theory of Jesus'
work and early Christianity as both
centering on a secret initiation cere-
mony in which the new believer experi-
enced an ecstatic ascent into the king-
dom of heaven.
The first theme is artfully told to
show how, for Smith, the excitement
 Shorter Reviews and Notices
Interpretation

of scholarly discovery is far more signif- tions which He behind it. Smith thinks
icant than the excitement of ecstatic that Jesus and early Christianity do not
disorientation in worship such as the represent the emergence of anything
early Christians, he thinks, experienced. strikingly new, and in particular that
The second theme is spelled out in one should not look at their ethical-
scholarly detail in another volume of social vision to understand their dy-
which this is a popular resumé. It namic. Thus he turns to intense, in-
would be foolish to try to make decisive ward experience (widely sought in that
judgments on the basis of the sketchy world) as the dynamic of Jesus and
account here, but it does appear that early Christianity. But he sees this quest
the letter of Clement is genuine, and for ecstasy as a sign of abnormal per-
that its quotations from the secret gospel
of Mark give us an important fragment
of an apocryphal gospel, hitherto un-
known. The main thing in the quota-
tion is a version of the story of the rais-
ing of Lazarus which seems to stem
For The
from some other source than John.
Smith's discovery gives added strength
Thinking
to the view that a collection of miracle
stories stands behind both Mark and Men...
John. In this version the young man
spends the night with Jesus after he is
raised; by an ingenious but very shaky
chain of hypotheses, Smith uses this
story to illustrate his theory that Jesus'
secret inner circle were initiated by an
all-night baptism-initiation in which an
ecstatic ascent to heaven was experi-
enced.
The third theme, just noted, is de- ENCOUNTER WITH GOD
by Morton Kelsey
veloped by supposing that the decisive foreword by John Sherrill
differences between Paul's baptism and "This could become one of the
that of John the Baptist were intro- major books of our era. It
duced by Jesus, and that these new ele- points people to a discoverable
reality . . . " Larry Christenson
ments derive from Jesus' using magical $5.95 At Your Bookstore
shaman-iükt techniques in baptism, com-
munion, and healing. Rather than ^ BETHANY FELLOWSHIP
·, 6 8 2 0 Auto Club Road
probing the details of this theory, it will
be more helpful to clarify the assump-

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235
sonality (he associates speaking with
tongues and schizophrenia). This per-
spective is more a product of his en-
lightenment rationalism than of his
sources. The book is brilliant but not
convincing. Particularly in relation to
the "libertinism" of parts of early Chris-
tianity (and, according to Smith, of
Jesus), he has much to learn from those
who look to the ethical-social vision of
early Christianity as central to its dyna-
mic.
WILLIAM A. BEARDSLEE
Emory University
• Commentary on Luke, by RAY SUM-
MERS. Word Books, Waco, 1972.
338 pp. $8.95.
REVIEWING a long, detailed commen-
tary is like describing a crowded beach
on a summer Sunday: The various ob-
jects on display are too diverse, too
colorful, and too scantily covered to per-
mit accurate generalizations. Attempts
to photograph the entire beach leave the
separate figures blurred. Commentaries
should not be read from beginning to
end like a novel, but rather like a dic-
tionary, according to the ad hoc needs
of a reader of the Bible. Certainly this
commentator devotes his major energies
to each successive atom in the story of
Jesus, trying to clarify the meaning of
that atom. Very few verses elude his
attention. At times he finds an obstacle
to understanding in the text, the gram-
mar or the translation, and so he tries
to remove that specific obstacle. More
236 Downloaded from int.sagepub.com at NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIV on March 16, 2015
often the problem is posed by the cul-
tural distance between Luke and the
reader, or by apparent contradictions
among the four Gospels in their witness
to the same event or teaching. The test
of Summers' success will be whether he
answers the questions which the Gospel
arouses in the mind of contemporary
laymen.
It is clear to me that this volume
will not speak directly to the needs of
many scholars. There is, for example,
virtually no interest in the historical vo-
cation or the theological position of
Luke himself (redaction criticism).
There is scant interest also in the life of
the apostolic church and in the develop-
ment of the oral traditions between the
gospel events and the Gospel-writing
(form criticism). The author seems to
be relatively immune to radical histori-
cal skepticism and theological contro-
versy. Although he is less conserva-
tive than his immediate constituency,
and quite candid in facing problems
which will disturb them, he is content
with the modest and undramatic task
of clarifying moral and spiritual aspects
of the text for homiletic and pedagogic
purposes. As a result, I think his com-
ments are better in dealing with the
parables than with the birth stories,
with the journey to Jerusalem than with
the miracles; for example, of the meal
for the five thousand, he writes that
"likely three-fifths of the crowd had
never had a really satisfying meal be-
fore this one" (p. 108). Thus, apart
from an occasional reference to the