This collection of essays by participants in the Magic and Divination in the Biblical World research group of the European Association of Biblical Studies represents a wide ranging, analytical, and often unconventional approach to a relatively neglected area within Biblical Studies. These original articles by new and established scholars include Mesopotamian demonology, Akkadian literary influences, exorcism, healing, calendars, astrology, bibliomancy, dreams, ritual magic, priestly divination, prophecy, magic in the Christian Apocrypha and the New Testament, magic in rabbinic literature, and Jewish Aramaic magic bowls.

Helen R. Jacobus holds a Ph.D (2011) in Religions and Theology from the University of Manchester. Her main research areas are calendars, astronomy and astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Judaism. She is currently an honorary research associate at University College London.

Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme (Ph.D Copenhagen 2011) is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Copenhagen. She has published several articles on rituals and cult in the Hebrew Bible as well as a forthcoming (2013) book on votive practice in the Hebrew Bible and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Philippe Guillaume (Ph.D Geneva 2002) is Privatdozent at the University of Berne and member of the current Jezreel Expedition. His most recent book is Land, Credit and Crisis: Agrarian Finance in the Hebrew Bible (2012).

Front cover: Fish-shaped Megillah (Scroll of Esther), courtesy of the Jewish Museum, London.

REVIEW:

Studies on Magic and Divination in the Bible World enriches an important and growing field of research. The editors and contributors are to be commended.

--- Craig A. Evans, Acadia Divinity College, Nova Scotia, Canada, Review of Biblical Literature