THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Were biblical times more pious than our own? These 15 new stories suggest that criminal violence goes on forever.

What counts as a biblical mystery? The most frequent answer here is latter-day allegory. Marcia Talley offers a female take on Cain and Abel, Brendan DuBois updates the story of David and Bathsheba, editor Perry brings Absalom’s murder of his brother into the courtroom, Martin Edwards revisits the punishment of Jezebel, Judith Cutler the heroism of Judith, Peter Robinson the decorous horror of Salome and Carole Nelson Douglas, in the most complex and evocative of these entries, the magical episode of Lot’s hospitality to strangers. Sometimes the allegory is more strained, as in Gillian Linscott’s tale of Egyptian frogs and Bill Crider’s modern crucifixion, or thin, as in Lillian Stewart Carl’s parable of murder on a slave plantation. The clerical sleuths of Ralph McInerny and Peter Tremayne seem naturals for this company, but Father Dowling’s case is merely routine, while Sister Fidelma grapples with a vexing theological conundrum. Meantime, Simon Brett’s ebullient heavenly inquest into Cain’s guilt trumps its more self-serious brethren, and Edward Marston and Sharan Newman produce inventive, appealing anecdotes by forsaking close biblical parallels for a medieval world that seems almost biblical itself.

If there’s a moral here, it’s that the justice system, with its emphasis on crime and punishment, may be a modern invention, but that sin is eternal.