"First published in German as Die Entstehung der Bibel: Von den ersten Texten zu den heiligen Schriften by Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, © Verlag C. H. Beck oHG, München 2019."--Title page verso

Translated from the German

Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-414) and indexes

What is "the Bible"? -- Scribal culture -- Emerging Judaism -- Scripture in Judaism -- Ancient Jewish texts in early Christianity -- The formation of the Christian Bible -- The Jewish Bible, the Mishnah, and the Talmud -- The book of books

"The Bible as we know it today is best understood as a process, one that begins in the tenth century BCE. In this revelatory account, a world-renowned scholar of Hebrew scripture joins a foremost authority on the New Testament to write a new biography of the Book of Books, reconstructing Jewish and Christian scriptural histories, as well as the underappreciated contest between them, from which the Bible arose. Recent scholarship has overturned popular assumptions about Israel's past, suggesting, for instance, that the five books of the Torah were written not by Moses but during the reign of Josiah centuries later. The sources of the Gospels are also under scrutiny. Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter reveal the long, transformative journeys of these and other texts en route to inclusion in the holy books. The New Testament, the authors show, did not develop in the wake of an Old Testament set in stone. Rather the two evolved in parallel, in conversation with each other, ensuring a continuing mutual influence of Jewish and Christian traditions. Indeed, Schmid and Schröter argue that Judaism might not have survived had it not been reshaped in competition with early Christianity. A remarkable synthesis of the latest Old and New Testament scholarship, The Making of the Bible is the most comprehensive history yet told of the world's best-known literature, revealing its buried lessons and secrets."-- Dust jacket