Offering an extraordinary window on centuries of dialogue between the Bible and literature, this superb, unprecedented, and award-winning reference work is designed to help the modern reader understand how biblical motifs, concepts, names, quotations and allusions have been transmitted through exegetical tradition and used by authors of English literature from the Middle Ages to the present. The book includes several hundred encyclopedic articles (more than a million words) written by a distinguished international roster of more than 160 contributors representing the disciplines of biblical studies, theology, patristics, and literary studies.