A grand history of the Bible written by a major historian of theology. Pelikan takes the reader through the Bible's evolution from its earliest incarnation as oral tales to its modern existence in various configurations and translations. From the earliest Hebrew texts and the Bible's appearance in Greek, then Latin, Pelikan explores the canonization of different Bibles and why certain books were adopted or rejected by certain religions and sects, as well as the development of the printing press, translation into modern languages, and the varying schools of critical scholarship.