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The Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome

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Believer or non-believer, if one aspires to a knowledge of any of the humanities, or even, the development of the sciences, in the West, but also to a significant degree in the East, what could be more de riguer than to know a bit about the massive history of the Bible? Without question, from the standpoint of our contemporary world, the Bible is, by far, the most influential cultural statement. Knowledge, not only of its contents, but of their transmission, is indispensible to knowledge of our selves. We could say that Biblical literacy is pre-requisite to cultural literacy - and cultural literacy is pre-requisite to self-knowledge in any verifiable sense.
This landmark study, handsomely produced by Cambridge University Press, which may, on initial inspection, appear to be a daunting read, consisting of three encyclopediac and rather imposing tomes, turns out to be surprisingly accessible. In fact, once one starts reading (a journey here really does begin with the first step), it's tough to put down! These books are filled with the most curious revelations and all sorts of arcane facts. Moreover, knowing this history may change the way one looks at the world. For instance, I was always under the impression that Luther was the first to translate the Gospels into the vernacular German, and that this innovation was one of the primary causes of the success of the Reformation. Right? Wrong. The Vulgate was translated as early as the 7th century by the Goths. A Goth named Ulfilas taught Christianity in as early as the 4th century and a Goth Bible was produced on purple parchment (I suppose these were the original purple pages) penned in gold and silver ink. I'm sure their contemporary descendents would much approve. Renaissance scholars believe this Bible, the Codex Argenteus, was extant at least as early as 795 A.D. Further, there were a number of Bibles floating around Germany and the Lowlands when Luther produced his. Nor did Luther do it alone. He had help from two other guys who knew more Latin than he did. But, his introduction, the widespread literature he had created leading up to its publication, and, ironically, the fact that he had Fredrick's printing presses cranking out copy by the minute, were the great compensating factor in making his translation the earth shaking bestseller that it became. Kudos to Team Luther, eh?

Ironically, Volume 1 of this Cambridge History was written after the first two volumes (see The Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 2, The West from the Fathers to the Reformation and The Cambridge History of the Bible: Volume 3, The West from the Reformation to the Present Day)), but that need not affect the modern reader of this comprehensive and magnificent historical source, produced by a fine team of scholars.

Chapters include: "The Biblical Languages," "The Old Testament in the Making," "Canonical and Non-Canonical," "The Interpretation of the Old Testament in the New," "Biblical Exegesis in the Early Chrurch," etc.

Here are some representative quotations from the first volume:

"Though the teacher himself need not be a writer of books any more than Jesus himself was, yet his activity implied that books were readily available. Christianity grew up with the idea, quite alien to the pagan world, that books were an essential part of religion. The growth of Christian literature and teaching and in due course of the Canon can only be understood in the light of practices inherited from Judaism." (Pg. 51)
"A single inspired book, or group of books, was not in the first two generations felt to be necessary for the 'instruction in Christ' provided by the living tradition handed on from mouth to mouth, reinforced by circular letters from the leaders of the Church." (Pg. 55)
"(H)aving been handed down by human agents for more than two millennia, the text of the scriptures suffered from the shortcomings of man. It became faulty to a greater of less degree and even at times distorted. It must therefore be subjected to scholarly critical analysis like any other ancient literary document." (Pg. 161)
""(V)ariation as such in the textual transmission cannot be laid exclusively at the door of careless scribes, or of sometimes unscrupulous, and sometimes well-meaning, emendators and revisers. One has to consider the possibility ... that individual variants ... may derive from divergent pristine textual traditions." (Pg. 162)
"The Canon of the New Testament was the result of a long and gradual process in the course of which the books regarded as authoritative, inspired, and apostolic were selected out of a much larger body of literature." (PG. 284)
"Towards the end of the second century we find the beginnings of a distinctive exegesis of the New Testament comparable to that which Christians were already practising on the Old Testament. The New Testament had by this time almost won its way to recognition as a document possessing equal authority with the Old." (Pg. 416)

I'm not going to get into great academic detail on this volume of the 3-volume Cambridge History of the Bible but suffice to say the set is arguably the best academic resource currently available on the topic. Extremely detailed but easily understood (kind of a rarity in academic textbooks). This is a must-have for Christian scholars as well as Christian laity alike.