I have been on a quest for an easy-to-read introduction to historical and literary analysis of the Bible. My goal is to find something to recommend to to my Christian friends who are lacking what I consider rather fundamental knowledge about a book that they are basing their life on. Christians will (and should) read the Bible primarily from a devotional point of view. However, to not understand the origins of a book you are basing your life on is, in my opinion, rather scary.

However, this book is most certainly not the book I would recommend. First, this book is only about textual criticism which is concerned with recovering the original text of the Bible. This is certainly an important part of understanding the Bible as it exists today, but only a part.

Second, while the book claims to be about how we got the Bible, it's really mostly about how we got the New Testament with a small amount of discussion about the Old Testament.

Third, when the author says that this book is "designed for the average reader", he means middle school reading level. Despite the book's 209 pages, the author gives only a shallow overview of textual criticism. To pad out the space, he spends a fair amount of time on stories about how various manuscripts were discovered. A better author could, perhaps, pull this off without making it seem like a waste of space, but Lightfoot, while a quite competent writer, is not quite up to the demands of the "the adventure of discovery" genre.

I would not say that this is exactly a bad book. It's just not very good. My current candidate book for recommending to others covered the same informational content in less than a chapter.

(The annoying part is that I actually spent money on this book because it was recommended by someone who I have luck listening to in the past, and the library did not have it.) ( )

Un libro fundamental para toda persona que de una u otra manera lee la Biblia, ayuda a eliminar muchos errores y confusiones respecto a las traducciones, los originales, la preservación y afirma la fe en la infalibilidad de la Biblia como palabra inspirada por Dios. ( )

Good overview of this interesting subject. ( )

Excellent reference book for better insight into how the Bible came to us. Could serve as good class guide. ( )

A history of the writing of the Bible; unfortunately, the author manages to ignore a large chunk of the scholarship on the topic. This book is written more for propping up belief that the Bible is the received word of God than it is for taking an honest look at the actual process of writing the Bible. Mostly interesting for the discussion of the various scrolls and papyri that are available; however, the author plays some word tricks to prop up belief that these are older than they really are, often mentioning a much earlier date in the first paragraph of a section, setting it in the reader's mind that the scrolls, etc, go back to this earlier date. Only the most discerning reader is likely to catch the bait-and-switch. It does get points for being easy to read and well written; not a lot of jargon to clutter up the process for a lay person. ( )