Fortress Press

Vic Matthews is one of the most fertile minds in contemporary biblical scholarship. His capacity to write clearly on the topic of silence in the biblical sources is an outstanding example. Both seasoned scholars and ordinary readers can readily comprehend the richness of the meaning he derives from his use of anthropology to enlighten the biblical texts, how man, woman, and the deity, too, were viewed in the Old Testament in down-to-earth terms. The book's sophistication is of a high order and relayed with a lightness of touch that at every turn makes for stimulating reading.

Victor Matthews does what he does so well in this book--exploring what is hidden, between the lines, sensed, felt, and in this case unsaid in order to show us the Bible in a new way. Situated within a larger frame of the way silence functions in literature and everyday life, Matthews's work makes a useful and practical companion to Auerbach's famous essay in Mimesis ("Odysseus' Scar") for thinking about the strange and artful ways biblical authors speak through the things they do not tell us.

Silence is often ignored and unappreciated in our noisy world. Biblical interpreters have by and large failed to recognize the literary and theological significance of silence in Scripture. Thankfully, Victor Matthews's study goes a long way in rectifying this as he masterfully shows how the theme of silence contributes to a deeper, more profound understanding of the text and the characters appearing therein. Matthews's insightful analysis of this neglected topic is a fascinating read that I heartily recommend.

Matthews explores silence in the Old Testament as an art historian might explore darkness in a Caravaggio painting, not simply noticing it but interrogating it. God's "absence" in silence can be purposeful--summoning our attention, offering us peace, calling us to repent, or inviting us to be still and trust God to act when the time is right. It's amazing what the darkness can tell us about the light.