Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible, The

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible. Edited by John Rogerson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xvi + 395 pages.

Seventeen scholars, principally from British universities, are the authors of this brilliant reference work on the Bible's own history. From "The Making of the Bible" in its origins, text, and translation to "Contemporary Interpretation," including feminist scholarship and liberation theology on three continents, the Bible is described in its progress through the ages to the present day. Fascinating studies, with twenty-four pages of color plates and 150 other reproductions, tell how the Bible was used throughout the centuries in the Early Church, Middle Ages, Reformation, and modern period. The role of the Bible is shown in the liturgy of the Eastern Church and monasticcism and in its particular authority in the piety and intellectual history of Judaism.

The longest chapter, by Geoffrey Khan of the University of Cambridge, is "The Hebrew Bible," with the story of several generations of Masorete scholars and the complex physical continuity of manuscripts in scroll and codex to the Biblia Hebraica, the rabbinic Bible, and other modern editions today. Liturgical use of the consonantal text requiring the marking of paragraphs, accenting, and vocalization is of special interest. From the Hebrew origin of the Greek Septuagint to the Qumran fragments, comparisons are made explaining the transmission of "independent layers of tradition" and the attempt at harmonization for a printed work.

Philip Davies of the University of Sheffield is the only writer with two articles, both on the Apocrypha. The appearance of these "hidden away books" in the ancient Greek Bibles, missing from the Hebrew Scriptures although written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and refused by Jerome for the Vulgate, is a fascinating story through the centuries from the time of the Latin Bible in the fourth century to the Reformation period. Uncertain in their canonical status, in spite of the authorization of the Council of Trent for the Western Church in the sixteenth century and the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 for the Eastern Church, Protestants and the Russian Orthodox Church eventually excluded the Apocryphal literature. The emphasis given here is due to the ambiguity of the Bible in respect to these books through two millennia and the nature of the books as part of the biblical heritage.

A major section, "The Study and Use of the Bible," consists of seven excellent articles by David Wright of the University of Edinburgh on the Reformation to 1700, George Habib Bebawi of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at the University of Cambridge on "The Bible in the Eastern Churches," David Jasper of the University of Glasgow on "The Bible in Literature," and others. The history of interpretation shows how critical has been the study of the Bible from earliest times and its centrality to religious life.

A peculiarity of this scholar's history is the final section called "Contemporary Interpretation." Editor Rogerson of the University of Sheffield says in the final preface, "There is no doubt that the past thirty years have witnessed one of the most exciting and creative periods in the whole history of biblical interpretation" (294). By this he means the advent of liberation theology, which "had its origin not in the lecture room or the private studies of scholars, but in the struggles of oppressed people in the 'two-thirds' world, oppressed people who dared to believe that the Bible had a message directed to their material as well as their spiritual well-being."

Yvonne Sherwood of the University of Glasgow authors the first of the final four articles, "Feminist Scholarship." She describes notorious metaphors of women in the Bible as well as the silence about women's lives. Along with critical analysis of figures in scripture presented from a male point of view, she presents forerunners of liberation theology as well as contemporary scholars like Phyllis Trible, Mary Daly, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Kwok Piu-Lan, and a score of others.

No less than three articles are entitled "Liberation Theology," with colons indicating Latin America, Africa, and Europe. Much attention is given to Latin America from Bartolome de las Casas to Archbishop Oscar Romero, with an account of the censure of Leonardo Boff and the repressive influence of Opus Dei. Gutierrez, Gottwald, Tamez, and Sobrino are among those cited. Rich resources of interpretation are described from the African context. Texts produced by the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) and a variety of authors (Schaaf, Maluleke, Ndungu, Sanneh, Mofokeng, and Mosala) show both the inculturation process as well as the creative interaction with the Bible and African contexts.

Luise Schottroff, retired from the universities of Mainz and Kassel, celebrates the hermeneutical approach of popular readings of scripture and the "rediscovery of the power of the Bible in concrete political confrontations" in the last article on Europe. Current emphases of the Kirchentage (the mammoth biannual lay gatherings in Germany), the World Council of Churches, the peace movements, the Women's World Day of Prayer, alliances against apartheid and presumably neo-Nazi violence are mentioned as areas of progressive signs of faith. The European Society of Women in Theological Research and Kairos Europa, critical of unregulated capitalist globalization, represent directions for the future.