Once again, world-famous biblical scholar James Barr steps into the arena of controversy with a challenging and penetrating work. Searching the Bible itself and the Christian tradition of interpretation from the early church to contemporary times, he presents a comprehensive and co gently argued description of how views of the biblical canon originated and how they have been shaped throughout history.

"The question then is, whether the phenomena of the biblical texts them selves are to be allowed to revise and remake our principles, or whether our principles are to be read into the biblical texts, even at the cost of obscuring their meaning." No panderer to those who prefer their answers to biblical problems simple and undemanding, Barr insists that the text of the Bible come before all systems of interpretation, no matter how theologically comfortable and ecclesiastically convenient they may be. He demonstrates that the criterion for biblical criticism is and always has been what the Bible itself actually says.