Customer Reviews

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible (Oxford Illustrated Histories)

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Like The Bible itself, this volume is a library of `books'. It includes works of varying styles and topics, written by various authors, and collected under a single cover. This collection of 16 essays, by an assortment of writers, (in my opinion) makes for a patchwork approach. The articles vary wildly in quality and approach.

The photographs, color plates, woodcuts, and engravings are absolutely spectacular, and complement the adjacent text. It's a pity they are not numbered, but they ARE indexed (by page number and T,B,L,C,R locations) in an addendum curiously titled `Acknowledgement of Sources'.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible is divided into four sections: (1) The Historical Background of the Making of the Bible; (2) Text and Translation of the Making of the Bible; (3) The Study and Use of the Bible; and (4) Contemporary Interpretation. My ratings of each subsection are: 5-star, 5-star, 4-star, and 1-star.

Starting with the first two sections dealing with the Making of the Bible, don't miss the contributions of Philip Davies, `The Apocrypha,' David Parker's `The New Testament'; and Stanley E. Porter's `Modern Translations'. Be aware however that Porter is solely concerned with translation of the Bible into English... those expecting coverage of any other focus will be sadly disappointed. One `chapter' I had looked forward to reading was `The Bible in the Eastern Churches'. Bebawi's essay on this topic was a total disappointment. It was especially sad, since the next article (by Philip Alexander, see below) was so well done!

Despite the fact that The Bible is 70 percent Old Testament and 30 percent New Testament, this book reflects a predictably disproportionate interest in Christianity. (Predictable because so many more people adhere to Christianity than to Judaism). Nonetheless, Philip Alexander's section, `The Bible in Judaism' is an excellent contribution. Geoffrey Khan's portion, `The Hebrew Bible' is also superb.

I found the last section (Contemporary Interpretation) to be a waste of paper and ink. The four essays included are: Feminist Scholarship; Liberation Theology: Latin America; Liberation Theology: Africa and the Bible; and Liberation Theology: Europe. It boggled my mind to find (1) nothing about contemporary American fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible, (2) nothing about the technical problems of translation (like the problem of the shepherd/sheep analogy to island-dwelling fishermen who have never seen a sheep or any conception of why a shepherd would be involved with these creatures); (3) nothing about the relationship of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to religions and sects indebted to them but not based on them (such as The Church of Latter Day Saints and Islam just to mention two!); (4) nothing about the Pentecostal movement, especially important in Latin America; (5) nothing about Biblical interpretations by `sects' (ranging from the Branch Davidians to the Jehovah's Witnesses - I could go on and on... This work is obviously academic (in a very narrow cultural sense), and - despite the pretensions of Section four (Contemporary Interpretation) - parochial. I was tempted to use a razor blade, and cut this entire section out of an otherwise excellent book!

Considering the amount of effort that went into this work, I wish that the editors had provided timelines. It is probably a better learning procedure to go through the text with an Excel spreadsheet or Word tables open, extracting data from the text into a chronologically coherent summary, but it is `a pain'. If a reader can do it, the editor could have done it.

This is an excellent work, despite many lacunae. It filled an educational gap in my knowledge, and - given the partisan glosses that Bible study usually includes - should help others with a sincere desire to learn more about this library of religious readings.

Let me begin by admitting that I was unable to read this book in full. From the onset, with John Rogerson's (the editor's) summary of the Old Testament, I found this work wholly lacking in thoroughness. It may be that I was expecting a different kind of work, especially when Oxford is the publisher. As other reviewers have noted, this book is pretty much the opposite of scholarly material. It should be surprising that I would feel that way, considering I am a lay student of biblical history.

To better understand my dissatisfaction, I would like to present an excerpt from the aforementioned summary; I apologize in advance for the resulting length of this review:

"In the second half of the thirteenth century BCE there was a migration of peoples from northern Transjordan to the central hill country of Palestine, the area of the later northern kingdom, Israel. The reasons for the migration are unknown; they may have had political or environmental causes, or both. This could well have included the entity, or part of it, that is mentioned as Israel in the Merneptah stele of 1219 or 1207. This group may have then been joined by a group of shasu who brought with them faith in a God Yahweh who had helped them to escape from Egyptian overlordship. Faith in Yahweh as the God of Israel then became one of the distinguishing features of Israel as it struggled for survival with the Canaanites and then with the Philistines in Palestine itself, as well as with neighbouring peoples in Transjordan."

This paragraph is presented by its author as fact, with no supporting references whatsoever. I have no idea how the author knows these things, even if they are true. This type of talking down occurs throughout the entire article. I am admittedly a Christian reader; but I am also incurably skeptical and a critical thinker. I have a hard time accepting anything as fact unless it is readily verifiable, if not by me, then by the author's peers. Here, nothing is given to verify. No sources for the conclusions, and no references for the derivation. I've written a similar complaint/review about Cambridge's "Companion to the Bible."

Again, it may be that my expectations were wrong for this book, but I do not like being spoon-fed information. I expect superior scholarship from works with Oxford's name on them. That may well be my mistake. In my opinion, scholars who are truly confident in their assertions should be willing to present alternative arguments, as well as their own. If their opinions are strong enough to withstand criticism, only then do I consider them palatable.

If you would like to read a treatment of the Old Testament by a true scholar, then I would recommend reading "On the Reliability of the Old Testament," by K.A. Kitchen. While his work may be too exhaustive for some, it can never be mistaken as being "written for children," as another reviewer put it.

Lastly, this book is not, as I had hoped, a history of the development of the Biblical text. I believe its title is misleading in that respect. It appears to be more of a history of the development of Judaism and Christianity into their current theological forms. That is fine, if that is what was intended. I just wish they had named it appropriately so I could have avoided it altogether.

Oh, did I mention that Origen's name is spelled "Origin" on page 173? Come on, Oxford!

I purchased this book looking for a guide to the actual history of hos the Bible came to be. This book delivered, sort of. It covered what I was looking for, but not in the depth that I really wanted. The collection of writers seem to know their subject matter, but the editing of putting together is somewhat lacking. It seems to be an overview of everything it sets out to define. There is no cross referencing or anything else that would make this a single-volume research book. At times the book is down right boring. Very nlittle is offered to captivate the reader's attention.

Yet the book is not without its merits. It gives the casual reader enough information to promote further study. It has very colorful artwork, though perhaps not enough (too many black and white copies of paintings). This book takes a dedicated reader to plow through it, but it may very well be rewarding for the right person.

I bought this because of the Oxford imprint. I have many Oxford histories and companions and they are all excellent: full of useful information, well-written, cross-indexed, etc.

This book is written for children; the prose is on the level of the World Book Encyclopedia. It is an overview, a primer on the subject. The pictures are good, but I expected a more advanced book because of the "Oxford" in the title.

If you have an young adolescent around the house who has an interest in the Bible or in religion of any sort, this would be a good purchase; a confirmation gift, for example. If you are an adult with any knowledge of the Bible and looking to increase your understanding of its history and influence, go elsewhere.

Similar books on the smae subject are written in a much more lively style. I've tried several times to read this book and just can't go on. So i've only read about one fourth of the book. The train of thought is hard to follow because the author goes of on some tangent, or clouds the main idea with insignificant and/or irrelevent details. It takes more concentration than I can muster to return to the main point of that section, if a main point can even be sorted out.

The book seems to focus more on how the Bible has been used through the centuries, and not so much about authorship and dating of the individual books. The book is not really about the Bible itself, but about the people and societies/organizations that have used it or been impacted by it throughout history. I belongs in the category of western/European history and not in the category of Biblical Studies. It might also abe categorized as History of Literature, or something like that.

My disclaimer: for the aforementioned reasons I've based this review on a quick parousal of the entire book and a more thourough reading of the first quarter of the text. I hope this helps.

This book started out meeting my expectations of discussion concerning how the Bible as we know it today has evolved since its conception. There is adequate discussion of the various versions and how they were produced and the abundant trials along the way for many of the first translators trying to get the Bible into the common masses' hands.

From there this book delves into textual criticism which is a logical course given that the Bible's various interpretations have much to do with the actions done in the name of God. This leads the authors to discuss how the Bible was/is used by its readership throughout history. I thought that there was not nearly enough discourse on the major threads of Christianity and Judaism, given the absolute importance of these denominations and Western civilization.

Finally, and discouragingly, the book ends with liberation theology with a main focus on feminism and African-American advances and here is where this book reads like a political agenda or a subtle apology. I found these issues a poor choice for the last 50 pages of the book. Should they have been ignored, probably not, but overkill comes to mind.