Bruce Gordon guides us on the boundless, unending odyssey of the 'Book of Books.'
The Bible is a testament to the power not only of Scripture but of the written word itself to connect humanity, to educate, liberate, and also to repress. Gordon bears witness to the individual lives leavened by the ever-changing form of the 'Book of Life,' from Frederick Douglass to the football fans of today's South Africa. This is
a compelling account of two millennia of Western book culture, and the places and, above all, the people the Bible has touchedThis is
the best survey yet written of the global transmission, and impact, of the world's most influential book. It is readable enough to be enjoyed by anybody, while any expert is likely to learn something new from it
This extraordinary book is both
a stupendous intellectual achievement and
a marvellously accessible guide that will delight everyone interested in how the Christian texts became the Bible, and why it has played such an enduring role in reading and worship in the millennia since
If the word of God is alive, it has now met its best modern biographer.
Filled with surprises, and sometimes aching with beauty, this is a book to take you wide-eyed round the world and then lead you back to that old leather-bound volume on your shelf
What I loved best about this book - aside from the
elegant prose and the abundance of startling facts - is the sense of a strong, wise mind behind it. Bruce Gordon has written
a book that will engage anyone interested in the Bible, which is anyone interested in human historyEven the best-informed readers will have much to learn from Bruce Gordon's
erudite and accessible history of the Bible, which ranges knowledgeably across eras and Christian traditions, and indeed across continents.
It deserves to find the widest possible audienceWith
stunning prose and relentless insight that could only come from this rightly celebrated historian, Bruce Gordon has given us the book that we need at this moment, a real history of the Bible. In Gordon's capable hands, the Bible becomes a sojourner through history who constantly makes history, and through whom history can be fruitfully understood in all its depths. This book is, quite simply,
an intellectual feast