McConville's book is marked throughout by deep and imaginative exegesis, in service not only to Biblical scholars like himself, but to a wide Christian audience seeking to grow up into the image of God in Christ. The weakness of the book is that its many separate pieces are never satisfyingly woven into a whole. ( )

An exploration of the condition and nature of humanity as established in the Old Testament.

The author bookends the work with Psalm 8:4 and its implications: what is man that God is mindful of him? He begins with the beginning and what it might mean that man is made in God's image, especially in terms of becoming "like God" by eating of the fruit and the subsequent banishment from the Garden. He then does well to speak of people as situated in a given environment and context; he attempts to make sense of people in a political sense of the Old Testament; the importance of work and creating; he concludes with the nature of humanity in the Psalms with all its messy reality and difficulties.

A profitable meditation on the state of humanity in the Old Testament.

**- galley received as part of early review program ( )