It's really too bad this book didn't make it to lucky number seven.

To explain textual criticism -- the recreation of an ancient writing known only from copies of copies of copies -- is very difficult; there are many, many things one must explain all at once: the need to do it in the first place, the sources (manuscripts), the versions (translations into other languages), the genealogy (family tree of the manuscripts), the methods (canons of criticism), and more. And that's just for the New Testament! It's a big job, and there is no good place to start, because you have to know it all at once. Most books don't do very well even with the New Testament, and they don't even try to include the Hebrew Bible.

This book was an exception: It included both Old and New Testaments, and it explained things quite clearly if not in tremendous depth. This caused it to go through several editions in its author's life, and even a posthumous fifth edition revised by A. W. Adams.

Unfortunately, the field marches on, and a lot has been done since Adams's time. The book is still good; it's worth having even now. But you'll need other books to get up to date. It's really too bad someone hadn't continued to maintain it. We'd be up to about edition seven by now -- and lucky to have it. ( )