Scan barcode
A review by alisarae
A History of the Bible: The Story of the World's Most Influential Book by John Barton
5.0
Absolutely fascinating. Will 100% be reading this again and I may need to buy a hard copy.
This is a thorough history of how the Bible came to exist in its current form. It explains the history of the existence of each book of the Bible (far more interesting than you might suppose). It also gets into big picture differences between Jewish and Christian interpretations and some of the finer details about how seemingly opposite sectarian interpretations of the same text can exist. The final part of the book is devoted to the history of the various translations of the Bible, and theories/concerns that translators need to take into account. The most interesting thing for me was learning about the differences between what the Bible literally says (like, what is actually present in the text) and what Christian/Jewish doctrine teaches. There are some...gaps.
It is written by an Anglican scholar, but it is not necessarily written for Bible believers. It is for anyone who has a curiosity about the Bible’s place in history and culture.
This is a thorough history of how the Bible came to exist in its current form. It explains the history of the existence of each book of the Bible (far more interesting than you might suppose). It also gets into big picture differences between Jewish and Christian interpretations and some of the finer details about how seemingly opposite sectarian interpretations of the same text can exist. The final part of the book is devoted to the history of the various translations of the Bible, and theories/concerns that translators need to take into account. The most interesting thing for me was learning about the differences between what the Bible literally says (like, what is actually present in the text) and what Christian/Jewish doctrine teaches. There are some...gaps.
It is written by an Anglican scholar, but it is not necessarily written for Bible believers. It is for anyone who has a curiosity about the Bible’s place in history and culture.