Introduction: The bible today -- Part one. The old testament: 1. Ancient Israel: History and language ; 2. Hebrew narrative ; 3. Law and wisdom ; 4. Prophecy ; 5. Poems and psalms -- Part two. The new testament: 6. Christian beginnings ; 7. Letters ; 8. Gospels -- Part three. The bible and its texts: 9. From books to scripture ; 10. Christians and their books ; 11. Official and unofficial texts ; 12. Biblical manuscripts -- Part four. The meaning of the bible: 13. The theme of the bible ; 14. Rabbis and church fathers ; 15. The middle ages ; 16. The reformation and its readings ; 17. Since the enlightenment ; 18. Translating the bible -- Conclusion: The bible and faith.

The Bible is the central book in Western culture, yet extraordinarily there is no proper history of it. This exceptional work, by one of the world's leading Biblical scholars, provides a full account of how the different parts of the Bible came to be written; how some writings which were regarded as holy became canonical and were included in the Bible, and others were not; what the relationship is of the different parts of the Bible to each other; and how, once it became a stable text, the Bible has been disseminated and interpreted around the world. It gives full weight to discussion of the importance of the Tanakh (Old Testament) in Judaism as in Christianity. It also demonstrates the degree to which, contrary to widespread belief, both Judaism and Christianity are not faiths drawn from the Bible texts but from other sources and traditions. It shows that if we are to regard the Bible as 'authoritative' it cannot be as believers have so often done in the past.