The Book: A History of the Bible

London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2001. First Edition . Trade Paperback. Fine/Fine. 8 1/4" x 9 1/2. Wilson, Ken - Design. 359 Pages Indexed. An as new book with flawless interior text pages. Stiff covers. Has a dust jacket with flaps with a 3/8 inch tear at the top spine area.. A compelling, highly readable, scrupulously factual and unbiased history of the Bible as a book, with over 200 rich, fascinating and varied illustrations of Bibles from all times and places. The Bible is the most widely circulated book ever written. This book tells the momentous story of the Bible as a book, tracing its publication in endless forms and numerous languages from its origins to the present day. The clear and highly readable narrative includes an account of the Old and New Testaments in their original languages of Hebrew and Greek, the Latin Vulgate translation of Saint Jerome, the magnificent manuscript Bibles of the Middle Ages, Guttenberg and the first printed Bible, and the translations of Wycliffe, Luther and the Protestant reformers. Continuing with missionary Bibles, the emergence of the modern Bible publishing industry and the mass of twentieth-century translations and versions, it concludes with the modern discovery of papyrus fragments and Dead Sea Scrolls which have cast important new light on the origins of the Bible. Christopher de Hamel writes as a historian. Without being evangelical or polemical, he bases his text scrupulously on actual surviving Bibles and the historical circumstances in which they were made. Scholarly and authoritative, The Book provides a new, clear-sighted, thought-provoking and utterly gripping account of the origins and history of the world's most influential book. Contents in Twelve Chapters: Latin Bibles from Jerome to Charlemagne, The Bible in Hebrew and Greek, Giant Bibles of the Early Middle Ages, Commentaries on the Bible, Portable Bibles of the Thirteenth Century, Bible Picture Books, English Wycliffite Bibles, The Gutenberg Bible, Bibles of the Protestant Reformation, The English and American Bible Industry, Missionary Bibles, and The Modern Search for Origins.