The Making of the Bible

From the First fragments to sacred scripture

Konrad Schmid • Jens Schröter

translated by Peter Lewis

“A landmark…If you have time to read only one book on the Bible this year, make sure that it is this one.”

—Katherine J. Dell, Church Times

“Excellent…With a sure touch, the authors lead the reader through the geopolitical context of the Hebrew Bible and the setting and background of the New Testament, finding something to say about practically every book’s origins and development…The Bible is not a fixed entity, clearly delineated from all other writings, even though our culture tends to see it so.”

—John Barton, The Tablet

“An erudite history of ‘How We Got the Bible’ that addresses the key issues—historical backgrounds, oral traditions, ancient manuscripts, canon formation, and the books that were left out. Schmid and Schröter are expert guides along these rocky paths.”

—Bart Ehrman, author of How Jesus Became God

In this revelatory account of the making of the foundational text of western civilization, a world-renowned scholar of the Hebrew scriptures joins a noted authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Christian scriptural histories and revealing the underappreciated contest between them.

The New Testament, they show, did not develop in the wake of an Old Testament set in stone. The two evolved in parallel, often in conversation with each other, ensuring a continuing mutual influence of Jewish and Christian traditions. A remarkable synthesis of the latest Old and New Testament scholarship, The Making of the Bible is the most comprehensive history yet of the long, transformative journeys of these texts on route to inclusion in the holy books, revealing their buried lessons and secrets.

Konrad Schmid is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism at the University of Zurich and President of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament. He is the author, most recently, of A Historical Theology of the Hebrew Bible.

Jens Schröter is Professor of New Testament and Ancient Christian Apocrypha at Humboldt University in Berlin and the author of Jesus of Nazareth: Jew from Galilee, Savior of the World.