Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-381) and index.

The making of the Bible. The Old Testament / John Rogerson -- The apocrypha / Philip Davies -- The New Testament / Margaret Davies -- The Hebrew Bible / Geoffrey Khan -- The apocrypha / Philip Davies -- The New Testament / David Parker -- Modern translations / Stanley E. Porter -- The study and use of the Bible. The early church / Henning Graf Reventlow -- The Middle Ages to the Reformation / G.R. Evans -- The Reformation to 1700 / David Wright -- 1700 to the present / Ronald Clements -- The Bible in Eastern churches / George Bebawi -- The Bible in Judaism / Philip Alexander -- The Bible in literature / David Jasper -- Contemporary interpretations. Feminist scholarship / Yvonne Sherwood -- Liberation theology : Latin America / M. Daniel Carroll R. -- Liberation theology : Africa and the Bible -- Liberation theology : Europe / Luise Schottroff.

Tells how and why a collection of writings in Semitic languages and Greek came to be written over a period of about 800 years; and how even before the Bible existed as one volume its constituent parts were interpreted and subjected to a scrutiny that no other writing has had to endure. Traces the several routes whereby what was to be called the canon of Scripture was determined, and controversies surrounding which writings should be regarded as authoritative. Describes how over centuries the writings were copied, translated, and printed; how interpreted in Judaism and in the churches in the East and the West, and concludes with surveys of how the Bible is being used today in feminist criticism, and in movements for theological liberation in Latin America, Africa, and Europe.