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REVIEWS OF

Biblical and Early Christian Studies

EUAN CAMERON

New Cambridge History of The Bible (Vol. 3)

In Cambridge University Press, Emanuel CONTAC, Euan CAMERON, Printing, Reception history,
Translation, Transmission history, Uncategorized on January 13, 2017 at 2:00 pm

(h p://www.cambridge.org/be/academic/subjects/religion/biblical-studies-new-testament
/new-cambridge-history-bible-volume-3?format=HB)

2017.01.02 | Euan Cameron, ed. The New Cambridge History of The Bible. Volume 3: from 1450 to
1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. xx + 975 pages. Hardback 125. ISBN:
9780521513425.

Review by Emanuel Conac, Pentecostal Theological Institute of Bucharest.

The third volume in the New History of the Bible series published by CUP, assembles 34 papers and
essays surveying the complex evolution and inuence of the most disseminated hypertext in the
printing era.
Whereas the editors of the initial series had compressed the post-Reformation period into a single
volume, in the revised series the past 500 years are covered by two separate volumes, each addressing
a wider variety of topics than would have been possible to include in a single 650-page volume.

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If reading such a bulky tome from cover to cover is not an insurmountable challenge, writing a
review of reasonable proportions that will adequately reect the multifaceted nature of the work
denitely is. That being the case, I will try to acquaint the readers with the basic layout of the volume,
focusing in some detail on certain specic problems which happen to fall within my area of expertise.

The six essays included in the rst part (Retrieving and Editing the Text in Early Modern Europe)
provide the reader with valuable information about the cultural factors that contributed to the
emergence of the printed editions of the original texts, while also describing the bi er controversies
stirred by such luminaries as Reuchlin, Erasmus and We stein. The chapter on Polyglot Bibles amply
illustrates the danger that these costly products could pose for their proprietors, many of whom were
bankrupted by the too bold printing enterprises on which they embarked.

The nine essays in the second part of the volume (Producing and Disseminating the Bible in Transla-
tion) tackle the production of Bibles in both Latin and the main vernacular languages of Western
Europe (German, Dutch, French, English, Italian and Spanish). Given the inuence exerted by
Luthers Bible, this work is dealt with at large in a separate essay (ch. 9), whereas the German Bibles
printed outside the Lutheran movement (mainly in Swi erland) are introduced and commented on
independently (ch. 11). Because vernacular translation of the Bible was usually the province of
Protestant scholars, most of the information included in these papers is largely focused on the
Protestant printers and translators. Chapter 14 (Bibles in Central and Eastern European Vernaculars
to c. 1750 by Graeme Murdock) touches briey on aspects related to the Romanian Bible and, while
giving a good general overview of the situation, could be improved by removing some factually
incorrect assertions. Coresi, the Wallachian printer who was instrumental in publishing some of the
earliest Romanian books, was a deacon, not a priest (p. 355). The version of Genesis and Exodus
(1582) was not accomplished solely by Mihly Tordasi, as implied by Murdock (p. 355). Rather, the
so-called Palia was the result of a joint eort by a team consisting of ve Reform-minded scholars:
Herce tefan, Zacan Efrem, Petiel Moisi and one Achirie, all coordinated by Torda Mihai, who at
the time was the bishop of the Reformed Wallachian church in Transylvania. In connection with the
New Testament published at Blgrad (Gyulafehrvr, modern-day Alba Iulia), in 1648, it is important
to know that, despite the high-sounding protestations of the Preface, which claims that the translation
followed mainly the Greek text, the Vorlage was to a large degree the Latin translation of Theodore
Beza, as found in his diglot editions. Whether Simion tefan was the only translator who continued
the activity of Silvestru is still a moot question. For a work of this magnitude, his team must have
included a few other scholars who remained anonymous.

The use of the Bible along confessional lines (Lutheran, Reformed, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) is
a topic discussed in the third part of the volume (Processing the Bible: Commentary, Catechesis,
Liturgy), which also devotes a ention to issues such as the authority of the Bible and the emergence
of new theories of interpretation in the Renaissance. A few chapters analyze the use of the Bible in
preaching, catechizing believers and worship. The most exotic contribution in this section is arguably
the one concerning Orthodox Biblical Exegesis in the Early Modern World (1450-1750). In this
chapter, the statements pertaining to the Romanian context deserve mention once again because they
do not do justice to the facts as known to scholars who are at home in the subject. According to
Athanasios Despotis, in Romania in the sixteenth century Diaconul Coresi (d. 1583) a empted to
immunise the Romanian Church against the spread of Lutheran and Calvinist works and translations
of the Bible by publishing Slavonic and Romanian translations of the Gospels, the Psalter and various
other liturgical texts (p. 529). In point of fact, during his career as a printer, Coresi, who must have
possessed more economic acumen and pragmatism than he is given credit for by scholars writing
about him in the 21th century, printed books in the service of Orthodox, Lutheran or Reformed
patrons. In 1556 he moved to Braov (Kronstadt), a town which had adopted the Reformation in 1542,
at the invitation of its Lutheran magistrates. In March 1559, the la er made an unsuccessful a empt to
reform the Orthodox Wallachian church outside the town walls and commissioned Coresi to publish
a Catechism (ntrebare cretineasc), which is a thoroughly Protestant work, with the wording of the

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Lords Prayer and the striking absence of the lioque addition in the Nicene Creed being the only
elements redolent of Eastern Orthodoxy. The Homiliarium (Tlcul Evangheliilor) published in 1567,
under the patronage of Hungarian nobleman Forr Mikls of Hporton and largely based on a Postil
by Pter Juhsz Mliusz, Vlogato prdikcik (Selected Sermons), contains such vicious a acks against
priests, monks, masses for the dead and various other practices bi erly denounced as superstitious
that the ultimate scope of the book can more accurately be described as demolition than as
immunization. The Book of Prayers (Molitevnic), which is bound with the Homiliarum, is a typically
Reformed liturgical book, seeking to eliminate everything unbiblical (holy oil, holy water, candles
etc.), in order to introduce a pure version of Christianity, reduced to its basics, with prayers and
hymns taken mainly from the Psalms. That Coresi could work not only for the Orthodox princes of
Wallachia, but also for various Protestant authorities (Lutheran or Reformed) is a clear indication that,
like most tradesmen, he was aware that money is not in the least tainted by the smell of heresy.

In the same chapter, Despotis writes, in connection with the Romanian Bible published in 1688, that
it is not known for certain who translated the Septuagint into Romanian (p. 529) and that it is not
clear who was responsible for the translation of the Old Testament (p. 530). In fact, the name of the
translator has been known for quite a while, at least since 1963, the year when Virgil Cndea made
the groundbreaking discovery that MS. 45 of the Romanian Academy Library in Cluj-Napoca was a
revision of the OT translation completed by the Moldavian boyar Nicolae Milescu during his stay at
Constantinople in 1661-1664. A full transcription of the manuscript with ample notes and comments
has been published recently by the University of Iai Press (Vechiul Testament Septuaginta. Versiunea
lui Nicolae Sptarul Milescu (h p://www.editura.uaic.ro/sa-carte.php?ctg=ultimele_aparitii&
id_c=1506)), under the supervision of professor Eugen Munteanu.

Since the Bible has had ample eects in a wide variety of domains, the fourth part of the volume
(The Bible in the Broader Culture) a empts to identify and describe what is in part
Wirkungsgeschichte and in part Rezeptionsgeschichte. The main topics selected for discussion are the use
(and misuse) of the Bible in political and scientic debates, as well as the inuence of the Bible on
historiography, literature, painting and music.

Finally, the last part of the volume (Beyond Europe) is also the shortest, consisting of only two
chapters, which explore the presence of the Bible in European colonial thought. Their scope, however,
is not too large, for both essays address the issues arising from the discovery of what we now call
South America. The reader who expects to nd a separate chapter about the role played by the Bible
in North America will be disappointed. The missionary activity of John Eliot and his translation of the
New Testament into Algonquian are briey examined on roughly two pages in the Afterword, but
nothing is said about the way in which the Bible informed the Weltanschauung of the New England
colonists or their relationship both with the world they had left behind and with the natives they
encountered in their new home. Also missing are comments on the quasi-unanimous hermeneutics
of slavery, which must have provided the New World slave owners with the consensus justifying
that institution, in which cracks began to appear in the 1670s (rst within the Quaker communities).

A feature which makes this volume a weighty scholarly product is the extensive use of primary
sources. While the style is uneven across all the chapters (Bruce Gordon deserves special
commendation for his clear and elegant prose), the wealth of information makes this massive tome a
worthy addition in the library of biblical scholars who are aware that the Bible continues, in a sense,
to grow within the Church and sometimes even outside it, having developed a life of its own.

Emanuel Conac
Theological Pentecostal Institute of Bucharest
emanuelcontac [ at ] gmail.com

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