In this work, Jared C. Calaway offers the reader what he calls an outrageous argument: “I will contend that Moses was more important in enabling emergent Christians to think through what it means to be human than was Jesus” (3). This statement does seem outrageous until one understands what Calaway is endeavoring to accomplish in this volume. He analyzes the various interpretations of Exodus 33:20 and Numbers 12:8 by Christian writers in antiquity and late antiquity and exposes a rich and varied interpretation of what it means to be human in the face of divinity. What adds to this richness is an apparent contradiction between these two passages: Exodus 33:20 has God telling Moses he cannot see His face and live, while Numbers 12:8 states that God speaks to Moses directly (face to face) and that Moses beholds the face of the Lord. Calaway uses this hermeneutical challenge to work out his thesis, asking how early Christian writers interpreted these texts and why their interpretations mattered to them (27). Calaway concludes that they mattered because each writer was challenged by different social pressures as well as theological challenges from within and without. As a result, this work is also a study about boundaries and issues of power and authority.

In the first section, Calaway examines the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Most New Testament writers will not allow Moses or any human to see God, as is clearly stated in John 1:18, I Timothy 1:17, and I Timothy 6:15–16. There are, however, at least two exceptions to this view in the New Testament: Matthew 5:8 states that the pure in heart shall see God in the future, and I John 3:2 proclaims that at the resurrection, the believer will see Christ as he is. This leads Calaway to ask, “If Moses did not see God on the mountain, who or what did he see?” Several New Testament authors maintain that Moses saw angels, as stated in Acts 7:30, Galatians 3:19, and Hebrews 2:2 (75).

In his second section (chapters 4–9), Calaway examines the writings of Justin of Neapolis, Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, and Origen of Alexandria. For Justin and nearly every other writer in this group, Moses did not see angels but rather Christ in his preincarnate state. In fact, for Justin, all theophany is Christophany (88). Calaway asks, “Why didn't Justin simply follow the clearer first-century precedents that Moses and the prophets saw angels?” (100). Calaway argues that Justin was combating negative views about Christians on the one hand while defending Christianity against freelance writers like Marcion on the other: “To say that they saw Christ differentiates Justin's brand of Christianity from Marcion's and contemporary forms of Judaism (as the Bar Kokhba Revolt is not too far in the back of people's minds), while laying claim to Judaism's antiquity” (102).

Tertullian and Irenaeus expanded Justin's teaching on several points. They agree that divine encounters in the Old Testament involved the preincarnate Christ but also taught that Moses's vision of God was fulfilled on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 12:1–7). In addition, Tertullian taught that Christ used his preincarnate state to learn what it meant to be human, while Irenaeus taught a progressive revelation that subordinates what one sees and how one sees to when one sees (126). Lastly, even though Tertullian maintains that the Son appeared, he also says that the Son's true essence (like that of the Father) is invisible, but that the Son makes himself known as needed. Tertullian takes this position to combat Praxeas and what became known as Patripassianism in the West.

In his final section (chapters 10–11), Calaway treats the Cappadocian fathers (Saint Basil, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa) in chapter 10 and Saint Augustine of Hippo in chapter 11. In the fourth century, the Cappadocians and Augustine make a shift from earlier sources as to what Moses saw on Mt. Sinai. The Cappadocians believed Moses saw God, and Saint Basil writes that Moses was the first human to do so. Yet the Cappadocians' emphasis was not on what one sees but on who sees. They believed it is the educated bishop-theologian and mystic, following in the footsteps of Moses, who is allowed to see God. Calaway cites Andrea Sterk in this connection: “The ascetic bishop has seen God. . . . He had purged his passions, contemplated divine truths, and ultimately like Moses encountered the living Lord on Mt. Sinai” (211–212; see also Sterk, Renouncing the World Yet Leading the Church: The Monk-Bishop in Late Antiquity [Harvard University Press, 2004], p. 244).

Augustine taught, in opposition to Justin, that anyone who taught that the Son was seen every time a prophet has a divine encounter was teaching heresy. Since fourth-century creeds (Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381) had deemed Christ to be of the same substance as the Father, Augustine would argue that any one person of the Trinity may have appeared to Moses or the prophets. Augustine believed that while God did not have a body, God could use a body or an angel to be seen by humans. Calaway insists, however, that in his teaching on Moses's vision Augustine subordinates what is seen and who sees to how one sees. For Augustine there are three levels of vision: corporeal, spiritual, and intellectual. It is at the highest level, the intellectual, that Moses, Paul, and other Christians may see God.

In this work, Jared C. Calaway has done an excellent job in examining how various Christian writers interpreted Moses's mountaintop experience. From his analysis, he has shown that this study is no neutral endeavor but rather involves issues of power and authority and often determines boundaries within a community.