The Bible in Time and Space

"In all its variety, Christianity is a religion of God’s address to humanity, communicated through the words of Scripture. Indeed, as Bruce Gordon argues so eloquently in The Bible: A Global History, the sacred text “is the story of a life force,” rooted in our “ongoing effort to hear God.” ... 

"Evangelicals tend to approach the Bible as mainly a devotional book, something to be read and understood for the sake of furthering spiritual growth. Gordon’s history by no means discounts this approach. It demonstrates, though, that throughout most of Christian history, the Bible was heard, performed, or seen, not read. 

"Reading Gordon’s work, three major themes come to the forefront: We see believers treating the Bible as an object of devotion. We see them translating the Bible into different languages, idioms, and cultural contexts. And we see them engaging with the Bible as a channel of personal communication from God."

For more, see the full review, or better, the book itself.