God's Scribes: How the Bible Became the Bible (Marco Polo Monographs 3)

"With a healthy balance of criticism and respect for the subject, this book examines how the Jewish Bible became “The Bible.” It is common to speak of the Bible as “inspired”—a group of mysterious documents miraculously handed down from heaven, absolutely perfect in form, every word, every letter, carrying specifically divine significance, but it was just well edited. This book is an excellent choice for a Bible history or Bible as literature undergraduate course text. Writing in ancient societies performed quite a different function from its modern usage. We must constantly remember that writing for the ancients was preservative rather than creative. The Bible preserves such debate and differences of opinion."