Nostra Scriptura
Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages
by Jaroslav
Pelikan
Viking, 2005
(274 pages, $24.95, hardcover)
reviewed by Patrick Gray
Because Jews and Christians have always affirmed that the Bible is, in some sense, “the word of God,” Jaroslav Pelikan admits that it may seem “not only presumptuous but blasphemous” to pose the question that provides the title of his latest work. Pelikan, retired professor of history at Yale whose works on Jesus, Mary, Luther, Bach, Faust, the creeds of Christendom, and the US Constitution have won many admirers (how many writers can boast of dust-jacket blurbs from Rowan Williams, Harold Bloom, John T. Noonan, and Joseph Ratzinger?), here provides a lively and accessible survey of the Bible’s history from its beginnings in Israelite oral traditions to its present status as “the book of books.”
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Patrick Gray teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife and their two children.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on bible from the online archives
32.3—May/June 2019
on the Implications of Changing the Pater Noster by John M. McCarthy
27.4—July/August 2014
The Bible, Sacred Theology & the Mind of Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
more from the online archives
22.8—November/December 2009
Looking for Beauty & Justice 150 Years After Darwin’s Classic by Charles Taliaferro
32.4—July/August 2019
on Probability, Death & the Existence of God by Graeme Hunter
18.4—May 2005
The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
