PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
John Barton was the Oriel and Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2014 and, since 1973, has been a priest in the Church of England. His bestselling A History of the Bible- The Book and Its Faiths was shortlisted for the Wolfson Prize for History, won the Duff Cooper Prize and has been translated into more than ten languages. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2007 and is a Corresponding Fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Immensely scholarly, well written and sprinkled with light touches. Who knew, for example, that there is a Lowland Scots version of the story of Christ's temptation in which the Devil speaks like a posh Englishman? Barton's book demonstrates that the history of biblical interpretation, with its vast implications for centuries of theology and politics, is inseparable from the issue of translation -- Daniel Rey * Literary Review * Fully displays John Barton's great gift for explaining complicated things lucidly and judiciously -- Robert Alter Enjoyable ... A great point that Barton made in his 2019 bestseller A History of the Bible is that the Bible has, for most of its history, been read in trans lation -- Christopher Howse * Telegraph *
