BrunleaBooks - The HOLY BIBLE - History of the English Bible

The History of the English Bible

Here is a small selection of excellent writings by academic scholars, both British and American, with writing styles which communicate effectively to the intelligent layman.

The first four concentrate on the "English" Bible whilst the fifth looks further back into the origins of the Good Book itself. You will see that we have included a biography of William Tyndale, because of his foundational role in bringing the Bible to us in our own language. His 1526 New Testament has recently been republished with an introduction by David Daniell, Chairman of the Tyndale Society, and author of both a biography of Tyndale and an outstanding book on the history of the English Bible - both listed below. Click on the cover picture here for more details and to order a copy of the Tyndale New Testament.

The fourth book in this list is a highly detailed piece of modern scholarship on the text of the King James Version, which for more than two hundred years has almost invariably been published in line with the Oxford edition of 1769 ("a seventeenth-century text in mid-eighteenth century clothes"). David Norton (of Victoria University, Wellington) has tracked back through the subsequent detailed editing of the 1611 translators' work, and Cambridge University Press has published not only this record of his research but also an A.V. edition representing "as closely as possible the exact text that the translators decided on."

Next are two American books which examine the historical and cultural context of Bible times, then from the UK's University of Liverpool comes Paul Lawrence's "Atlas of Bible History" (sorry there's no picture for this one yet(?) on the Amazon system). The row is completed by a volume on Biblical archeology.

But what about the content of the Bible? Here is something for those who wish to dig even deeper into the Bible itself. Firstly, two volumes from John Drane of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, written in his exceptionally clear style "both for students and for general readers". Thirdly, we list here the "New Bible Dictionary", first published in 1962, its development largely led from Tyndale House, Cambridge, England, and which is now in its third edition. Finally, at the time of collating the entries for this page, Amazon were offering the "New Bible Dictionary" along with the latest edition of the "New Bible Commentary" from the same publisher at a considerably reduced price for the two together. (You'll need to click on one of their two images below to check whether that offer still stands; of course, you can still buy them one at a time).