The Other Bible [Paperback]

Willis Barnstone (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 1984

Gathered here for the first time in one comprehensive volume are excerpted ancient holy texts from Judeo-Christian traditions that were excluded from the official canon of the Old and New Testaments. The Other Bible is a unique sourcebook of essential selections from Jewish Psudepigrapha, early Kabbalah, Haggadah, Midrash, Christian Apocrypha, and Gnostic scriptures.

The Other Bible provides a rare opportunity to discover the poetic and narrative riches of this long-suppressed literature and experience firsthand its visionary discourses on the nature of God, humanity, the spiritual life, the world around us, and infinite worlds beyond this one.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Willis Barnstone is a poet and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Indiana University. He is the author of The Poetics of Ecstasy: From Sappho to Borges; The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice; and The Gnostic Bible; and has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Pulitzer Prize nominee.

Product Details

• Paperback: 768 pages
• Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco (May 23, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062500309
• ISBN-13: 978-0062500304
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #801,522 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

128 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An overview at best, January 14, 2003

By 

blackjack "blackjack" (Charlottesville, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Other Bible (Paperback)

It should be made clear to any potential buyer that this book is composed primarily of EXCERPTS from the various texts, not the complete works. While Barnstone is a talented translator in his own right, the translations in this book are not his. Rather, they are culled from various sources, many in the public domain, such as the R.H. Charles editions of the Pseudepigrapha. While these translations are passable, they are often not based in the latest scholarship.

If you are looking for a Readers' Digest Condensed Apocrypha, this book might be worth it, but for serious study, your money would be better spent on the Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha, the Schneemelcher/Wilson New Testament Apocrypha, the Garcia Martinez Dead Seas Scrolls, and the Robinson Nag Hammadi.

100 of 110 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening look at History/Development of Western Religion, July 20, 2001

By 

David M. Elder (Pacifica, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Other Bible (Paperback)

This is a wonderfull compendium of Gnostic, Hermetic and non-cannonical Judeo-Christian scriptures. You will find selected chapters and passages from a ubiquitous array of ancient texts influenced by many faiths and philosophies.

Among other things, this book introduces you to:

-- The origin of the fallen angels and levels of heaven and hell (Book of Enoch et al) later depicted by Dante and Blake.

-- The Nag Hammadi Gonstic texts

-- The Hermetical texts

-- The Manachean texts

-- The Mystical texts of the Dead Sea scrolls and Kaballah

-- Strange Gnostic Christian beliefs from Simon Magus to the almost Satanic Cainites.

-- The complete 'Q'-sourced Gospel of Thomas

-- The Infancy Gospels of Christ

One of my favorite selections, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, reminded me of the Jerome Bixby SF Classic "It's a Good Life." with little Jesus terrorizing the town (wishing bad people away).

You will clearly understand after reading this book just how hetergeneous the early Christian communities really were in their beliefs. In fact, the earliest beliefs seem more Gonstic in flavor than they later came to be with the establishment of the Roman Church.

I would highly recommend this book to both the scholar and faithfull alike. For the former, it offers a look at the hisotry and development of Western religion and philsophy through original source material, while to the latter, the origin of some widely held notions, particularly about Heven and Hell, can be found here.

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent source for apocrypha scriptures, June 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Other Bible (Paperback)

Willis Barnstone did an excellent job in compiling "The Other Bible". This book is one of the best that I've encountered as to having almost all the Gnostic, Pseudepigrapha (Jewish), Apocrypha (Christian)books, and the Dead sea Scrolls translated into common english. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in alternative scriptures for use in problimatic archaeological writing where other written material would be useful. The only problem with the book is the bias I detected on the part of the editor, and the fact that other Christian-Jewish apocrypha were left out of this publication (Ex: The book of Adam and Eve 1 & 2, most all Apocrypha of the early church letters , The Story of Ahikar, and The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs). However, this book does rate very highly as compared to other apocrypha translated books I have read in the past. A must for anyone interested in this type of literature.