Whose Bible Is It?: A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages

290 Pages·2006·8.08 MB·English

by  Jaroslav Pelikan

hose Bible
Is It?
v
also by jaroslav pelikan
Jesus Through the Centuries
Mary Through the Centuries
The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine
Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of
Faith in the Christian Tradition
hose Bible
Is It?
a h i s t o r y o f
t h e s c r i p t u r e s
t h r o u g h t h e a g e s
{
Jaroslav Pelikan
v i k i n g

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,  Hudson Street, New York, New York , U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada),  Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada MV B
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd,  Strand, London WCR RL, England
PPenguin Ireland,  St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin , Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Books Australia Ltd,  Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria ,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd,  Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi –
 , India
Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland ,
NNew Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd,  Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg
, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:  Strand, London WCR RL, England
First published in  by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
        
Copyright © Jaroslav Pelikan, 
AAllll rights reserved
   -- 
Pelikán, Jaroslav.
Whose Bible is it? : a history of the Scriptures through the ages / Jaroslav Pelikán.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN ---
. Bible—History. I. Title.
BS.P 
’ .—dc 
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Nancy Resnick
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above pub-
lisher of this book.
To all my honorary Christian Alma Maters
—Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox—
and to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
which on 16 May 1991 / 3 Sivan 5751
made me an honorary Doctor of Laws
Contents
Preface ix
introduction. The Bible, the Whole Bible, and
Nothing but the Bible? 1
one. The God Who Speaks 7
two. The Truth in Hebrew 27
three. Moses Speaking Greek 49
four. Beyond Written Torah: Talmud and Continuing
Revelation 67
five. The Law and the Prophets Fulfilled 87
six. Formation of a Second Testament 99
seven. The Peoples of the Book 119
eight. Back to the Sources 141
nine. The Bible Only 161
ten. The Canon and the Critics 181
eleven. A Message for the Whole Human Race 203
twelve. The Strange New World Within the Bible 223
Afterword 245
Appendix I: Alternative Canons of theTanakh/Old Testament 253
Appendix II: New Testament 255
Notes and Further Reading 257
Preface
The idea for this book originated in Carnegie Hall at Christmas time
1990, with the annual performance of George Frideric Handel’s Mes-
siahby Musica Sacra of New York, under the baton of Richard West-
enburg.
A longtime friend and colleague, the conductor had invited me to
prepare an essay as part of the program notes for Messiah. Although I
had been listening to Messiah all my life, the venue of Carnegie Hall
raised a host of new questions about it and sharpened the point of
some very old ones.The essay in the program notes, therefore, bore
the title “Whose Bible Is It?” which I have now adopted for this en-
tire book. For in Carnegie Hall, at a performance where audience,
chorus, and orchestra included not only Christians but Jews and non-
believers, the biblical text of Messiah (only one-third of whose pas-
sages are taken from the New Testament) presupposed—or seemed to
presume—something that could not automatically be taken for
granted, not in that venue at any rate.Messiah seems to be implying,
as most Christians in most centuries have maintained, that when the
prophet Isaiah in his seventh chapter prophesies (according to the
King James Version of the Bible) that “a Virgin shall conceive, and
bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel,”or in his ninth chapter
proclaims “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given,” or in
his fifty-third chapter describes how “He hath borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows,” he is speaking not only explicitly but perhaps
even exclusively about the virginal birth and the atoning crucifixion
of Jesus of Nazareth, “Messiah.” Therefore these texts from the He-
brew Bible have been taken not to have a valid meaning in their own