John Barton is a theologian who served as the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford in England for twenty-three years, and has been a serving priest in the Church of England since 1973. He has studied and taught the Bible throughout his academic career, and has written many books on it, including Ethics in Ancient Israel and The Bible: The Basics. He is the editor in chief of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. He lives in Abingdon, United Kingdom.
Winner of the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Award for 2019
Chosen as a Best Book of 2019 by The Guardian
Praise for A History of the Bible:
“In addition to laying out the historical contexts in which the Old
and the New Testaments were created, this stimulating study
considers how they have been read, taught, and lived by
believers…[Barton] proposes a nuanced approach that seeks to give
the Bible its due without asking too much of it.” --The New
Yorker
“A History of the Bible is a lucidly written distillation of a vast
array of scholarship.” --Wall Street Journal
"A supple and intelligent recap of the Holy Scriptures, their
origins and contexts, [and] their meaning in a broad historical
sense" --Lit Hub
“Immensely impressive…A HISTORY OF THE BIBLE is 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 Monitor
"John Barton has written a wise and eminently sane book about a
book which has inspired both insanity and wisdom. It is a landmark
in the field, and it will do great good." -- Diarmaid
MacCulloch
"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
"With emotional and psychological insight, Barton unlocks this
sleeping giant of our culture for the untrained but curious general
reader... He has produced a masterpiece." -- Peter Stanford, Sunday
Times
"This strikingly accessible yet wonderfully erudite volume will be
welcomed by many … a tour de force." -- BBC History
Magazine
“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
“Barton’s rigorous, accessible history will appeal to academics and
general readers alike." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
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