This is a splendid book, well constructed, clearly argued, and characterized by rich, careful, and learned scholarship, as well as broad historical insight. The subject is the changing exegesis of the biblical story of King Saul, who goes to the village of Endor to have a woman with a reputation for the necromantic art conjure up the dead prophet Samuel in order to reveal the king’s future. This unique biblical episode of contact between the living and the dead gives rise to numerous debates from the beginning of the Christian era. This is especially so in the period covered by this book, the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, when interpretation becomes entangled with the controversies of the Reformation, discussion concerning the powers of witchcraft, and early Enlightenment debates over the reality of supernatural agents.

A particular value of this book is its emphasis on the plasticity and multiple functions of the various readings of this story. The most important differences concern the apparition of Samuel: its identity, nature, and the means by which it is produced. Three fundamental positions are already found in the Middle Ages: that the soul of Samuel truly appeared, whether conjured by the woman or sent by God; that the apparition was a diabolical trick, the devil either appearing in the guise of Samuel or creating an illusion; or that the supposed appearance was simply a trick of the woman, performed by simple deception, ventriloquism, or the aid of an accomplice.

The book explores how and why these three positions were promoted over three centuries. In the sixteenth century, for instance, positions adopted by protagonists depended heavily on what François Lecercle calls “a tribal logic,” created by the polarization of the Reformation. The Reform camp, almost without exception, defended the view that Samuel’s appearance was a diabolical trick since the souls of the dead never return to this world. This position was linked to the deep division Reformers created between the living and the dead in attacking the so-called death business of the Roman Church. Almost in reaction, many Roman Catholic exegetes affirmed the true appearance of the dead prophet. But despite the need to defend intercession with the dead, the Catholic camp was never as tight as the Protestant, with some fearing that a true apparition might be read as acknowledging the woman’s powers as a witch or providing tacit support for superstition.

This fundamental cleavage was overturned in the later sixteenth century when Reginald Scot in particular championed the claim that the apparition resulted from the woman’s trickery. This change, which reflected the urgency of the growing debate about the reality of witchcraft, served to bring together both Catholic and Protestant exegetes to attack this more radical position; and the battle became more intense in the later seventeenth century because of fears concerning a philosophical attack on the reality of the devil and the supernatural realm itself. With more intense concentration on the woman of Endor’s trickery in the eighteenth century, moreover, she was presented as a practitioner of ventriloquism or optical and hallucinatory illusion.

A short review can do little justice to the finer points of Lecercle’s argument, and the role that personal and professional circumstances played in the formulation of arguments by particular individuals. Lecercle covers the arguments of the main protagonists with considerable lucidity, from Flavius Josephus and Augustine to Calvin and Luther, to Le Loyer, Weyer, Scot, Bodin, Ganvill, Webster, and Calmet. But he also includes illuminating consideration of lesser-known but very significant commentators — such as Tostatus, Aepinus, Allatius, Galatin, and Rainolds — as well as the fascinating contribution by the English radical Lodowicke Muggleton. Although Lecercle explains his focus on English and French exegetes, it is puzzling that he omits any consideration of the largest work on the subject by the Frankfurt pastor Bernhard Waldschmitt. At the end of the book Lecercle suggests the value of exploring further the role of spectacle in the reception of this story through its inclusion in the theater of the period. Based on the quality and insights of this fascinating study, such a book will be warmly welcomed as providing further valuable insight into the critical role of the Bible in early modern European culture.