Professor Barr has brought together aspects of controversy about the Bible at the end of the millennium with an emphasis on the Old Testament and the history of Israel. The central question is how far the Bible gives us a vision into a real world of the past and how far it expresses a world imagined for religious reasons by writes who lived many centuries later.

Focusing on the Old Testament and the history of Israel, this book brings together aspects of controversy about the Bible at the end of the millennium. Author James Barr examines the nature of biblical narrative, asking whether the Bible expresses actual historical events or the ideological and religious aspirations of writers in much later times.

A first-class read