Anything that comes from the pen of the great Catholic scholar Father Joseph Fitzmyer is worthwhile. That is certainly true of this slender paperback, despite its quirks.

I’m sure Father Fitzmyer, as well as the Paulist Press, will be embarrassed by the fact that the scroll that takes up about a third of the cover is printed upside down, as anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew will quickly recognize. But it would be entirely wrong to think that this carelessness extends to the contents of the book. Father Fitzmyer is nothing if not a meticulous scholar.