'A compelling account' James G. Clark 'The best survey yet written . . . of the world's most
influential book' Ronald Hutton 'A stupendous intellectual achievement' Andrew Pettegree
'Aching with beauty' Alec Ryrie The remarkable story of the most influential book in human
history. The Bible is the world's best-known text. Yet it is a book that never was - its
original form does not exist and probably never did. What we have is the inheritance of
generation after generation of Christians who have sought to hear God speak. Available in over
three thousand languages and taking innumerable forms each version is a revelation evolving
as a reflection of its own culture and moment. Bruce Gordon traces the Bible's astounding
journey from its emergence as a codex in the second century to the Reformation to the
spectacular growth of Christianity in the Global South today. For centuries a source of
inspiration it has also been a tool for violence and oppression weaponised in the name of
colonialism and it has expressed hopes for freedom in the struggle for liberation. Found in
desert monasteries and Chinese house churches in Byzantine cathedrals and Guatemalan villages
it has been a book in motion from its very beginnings a product of more than two thousand
years of wandering restlessness and change. Breathtakingly global in scope The Bible is a
sweeping history of this sacred book told through the stories of its diverse human encounters
in search of the divine - revealing not a static text but a living dynamic cultural force.
