Margaret T. Gibson (1938–1994)

This book in many ways resembles a mobster's wife: It's beautiful and can't be trusted.

The beautiful part is the many photographs of significant Biblical manuscripts and early prints, ranging from the "Laudian Acts" (the Greek/Latin bilingual manuscript textual critics will know as "E," although Gibson cannot be bothered to give it its common symbol) to the Lindisfarne Gospels to a manuscript of Wycliffe's version to the Complutensian Polyglot. Not many books give photographs of so many Latin (as opposed to Greek) copies of the Bible; it is useful just on that basis.

But the text! Does author Gibson just make this stuff up out of her head? Hardly a page goes by without some truly and utterly ridiculous statement. Take the page on the Wycliffite Bible (p. 74, facing plate 23): "Wyclif... created the climate in which Oxford clerics wanted to have the Bible in English, even though they themselves could easily read it in Latin." No, the purpose of the Wycliffite Bible was to let everyone know what the Bible said, not just the clerics.

Or the page on the Complutensian Polyglot (p. 84, facing plate 27): "as good a Vulgate text as could be established, but not a direct version of the Hebrew, nor, for the New Testament, a direct version of the Greek." This is simply false. Jerome's task, when he was commissioned to translate the Bible, was to fix the so-called Old Latin version. He became so fanatical about this that he set out to learn Hebrew and created his translation from the Hebrew even when the Hebrew was manifestly corrupt and the Greek was better. The Vulgate was the only Christian version to be taken directly from the Hebrew Bible rather than its Greek translation.

A few mistakes like that are perhaps inevitable. But I just kept finding them. There are simply too many. Also, the refusal to call books by their usual textual symbols (as opposed to their catalog numbers) is a pain. For the record: Plate 1, the "Tours Pentateuch," is cited as "G" in the Stuttgart Vulgate; Plate 2, the "Laudian Acts," is (as I already said) "E" in all the common New Testament editions; Plate 4, the "Lindisfarne Gospels," is Wordsworth and White's "Y." The rest you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Give the plates four stars; give the text one star. Average: 2.5 stars. It's truly sad. If someone had bothered to write a halfway decent text, this could have been an excellent book.… (altro)