This collaboration between an American Hebrew scholar and a prominent Eng. Lit. critic and editor is long, detailed and presumably scholarly without being weighed down by too many footnotes or the usual heavyweight scholastic apparatus. It goes methodically through both the Old and New Testaments book by book, with commentaries and explanation, and at the end there are several essays on the Bible as literature, bringing in both Eastern and classical contexts. The Oxford Dictionary of the Bible by W.R.F. Browning (OUP, £6.99 in UK) covers theology, geography, history, myth and a range of biblical concepts and references in 400-odd pages of rather small print.
By Brian Fallon