It was Lewis, when still alive, who had encouraged Phillips to publish his translations of the ­Epistles of St Paul, under the title Letters to Young Churches (1947). It had huge sales and brought invitations for American lecture tours.

Fascinating, thought-provoking and informative. Not an altogether easy read, it must be said, and on occasions erring toward the dry and technical. But it's full of insights into the possibilities and pitfalls of translation. Are the words of the original the most important thing, and therefore to be rendered as closely as possible? Or is it the story (or argument) that's being told, in which case a freer rendering might give a truer understanding. Should you, that is, try to take the reader closer to the original text? Or take the text to the reader? Barton knows this subject in all its detail and complexity, which is what makes the experience both daunting and rewarding. If you don't have a degree in theology, you'll either have to spend a great deal of time doing research to be able to understand some of Barton's more specific or esoteric points or you'll have to be able to choose when to skim and when to sink into the book. I fall into the second category. I know my understanding of the specifics of The Word was only partial, but I also found that partial understanding very worthwhile. Bible expert Professor John Barton tells the story of how the Bible has been translated and explains why that story matters.John Barton’s new book gives a superb overview… condensing masses of research into an easily accessible volume for the non-specialist …even for those deeply familiar with the Bible there is much here to be learnt.”–Bart D Ehrman, author of The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World From a distinguished Oxford scholar and the author of A History of the Bible, an examination of how biblical translation works and why it matters I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

This strikingly accessible yet wonderfully erudite volume will be welcomed by many … a tour de force.” – BBC History Magazine Sometimes metaphors and symbolism in scripture can bypass our left brain, logical approach. This is the dynamic reality of engaging and conversing with God in spiritual disciplines like Lectio Divina, where we create opportunity through meditation on the word for God to speak to our inner being. In antiquity there were nevertheless anxieties about the status of Scripture in translation. The Talmud transmits a pious retelling of the story we read in the Letter of Aristeas. Ptolemy has the 72 translators isolated in 72 separate rooms, each translating the Torah independently. “The Holy One, Blessed be He, placed wisdom in the heart of each and every one and they all agreed to one common understanding.” Under divine inspiration, the translators each produce an identical, authoritative Greek text. Fundamentalists will not be queuing up to up to buy A History of the Bible: the Book and its Faiths. But for believers of a more open disposition, and non-believing lovers of great literature, reading it will be a revelation and a delight.

Church Times Bookshop

This book examines how saints, scholars and interpreters from ancient times down to the present have produced versions of the Bible in the language of their day while remaining true to the original. It explains the challenges they negotiated, from minute textual ambiguities up to the sweep of style and stark differences in form and thought between the earliest writings and the latest, and it exposes the bearing these have on some of the most profound questions of faith: the nature of God, the existence of the soul and possibility of its salvation. The Bible is held to be both universal and specific, the source of fundamental truths inscribed in words that are exact and sacred. For much of the history of Judaism and almost the entirety of Christianity, however, believers have overwhelmingly understood scripture not in the languages in which it was first written but rather in their own - in translation. The Biblical World is a comprehensive guide to the contents, historical settings and social context of the Bible. It presents the fruits of years of specialist study in an accessible form, and is essential reading for anyone who reads the Bible and would like to know more about how and why it came to be. Barton is extremely good at untangling what is actually known from what can be reasonably inferred from what has been lost to time…his book will have much to tell both curious secular readers and the faithful about the patchwork process by which a compilation that is so often treated monolithically came to exist.”— Harper’s Magazine Other issues crop up when he discusses the doctrinal implications of linguistic data. I think it all boils down to one problem: Barton doesn't quite understand the evangelical doctrine of inspiration/inerrancy. He suggests, for example, that the imperfect Greek grammar of Mark and Revelation may contradict such beliefs. To anybody who has seriously studied the subject, however, that is simply preposterous.

The night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening. I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions. Immensely impressive… A HISTORY OF THE BIBLEis a confident, distinctly courteous performance, wary of overstatement and sure of its intellectual footing. No work of literature has a more fascinating life story than the Bible, and Barton has told it with a precision and insight that will make this the definitive account of the century.”– Christian Science MonitorNevertheless, if one starts from a largely biblicistic position, one is unlikely to produce a document more sensible, humane, and open-minded than LLF . It goes about as far as is conceivable, within the parameters of what is sayable in the modern Church of England, in making it possible for all voices to be heard and respected, and in offering a basis for reasoned discussion. So long as we regard everything in Scripture as impossible to criticise, we are unlikely to get any further than this, and the authors deserve a round of applause for their skill, dedication, eirenical intent, and readable style, even though they dodge the really hard questions about the Bible. This is a fascinating book! Much of the discussion around translation, especially in my circles, centers entirely around formal and functional equivalence. Barton does an excellent job here of demonstrating that the formal/functional spectrum is only one of several important features of the translational process. He considers matters such as doctrinal presuppositions, tonal register, archaism, gender inclusivity, textual criticism, genre, form criticism, and canon (as well as others) all factor into the process. His core thesis is that the adequacy of a translation depends in large part on its purpose, and therefore that, while there can be incorrect translations, there cannot be one uniquely correct one. I think he proves this point quite persuasively.

A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priestThe Word is a fascinating and readable introduction to how we get from foreign texts in the ancient world to the modern English Bible heard in church or taken down from the shelf at home. The traduttore may be a traditore, but Barton is a faithful guide. After their number, the translated Torah – and, by extension, the whole Greek Old Testament – is known as the Septuagint. This was the Old Testament of the Greek-speaking Church of the Fathers. Thanks to the Septuagint translation, Christian Bibles contain texts outside the Jewish canon of Scripture, such as the Wisdom of Solomon and the books of the Maccabees. Barton is a former Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford and has been a serving priest in the Church of England since 1973. He is author of A History of the Bible, co-editor of The Oxford Bible Commentary and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation. Barton’s own preference is to ­follow the three criteria of ­adequacy, genre and purpose in Reiss and Vermeer’s Towards a General ­Theory of Translational Action (1984), which I have not read.