A History of the Bible
By John Barton, Allen Lane
640pp, £25/$35
When I was a novice, one of my fellow novices encouraged me to read a book called The Interpretation of the New Testament, 1861-1986. From the first page I was hooked, and the course of my life, to some extent, was set from that moment.
I mention that book simply because, if it was gripping to me, then John Barton’s new History of the Bible is utterly unputdownable. This may strike the sceptical reader as hyperbole, but I can promise that if you have even the slightest interest in the Scriptures, and the remotest hint of intellectual curiosity, then this is a book to delight and enthral, to awaken the imagination and compel the deepest engagement with difficult but fascinating questions. What is the Bible? Who wrote all these different books, when and why? What is the relationship between the New Testament and the Old – and should we even be saying “Old”? What does it mean for a Catholic, a Protestant or an Orthodox Jew to say that the Bible is authoritative or inspired?
