A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature.Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature English literature, literature written in English since c.1450 by the inhabitants of the British Isles; it was during the 15th cent. that the English language acquired much of its modern form. , David Lyle Jeffrey, general editor (William B. Eerdmans, $75, 960 pp.), is a book that re-establishes its premise with a kind of loving exuberance on every page. It is something of a commonplace that no book in English literature is more important than the Bible, a book that, of course, was originally not a part of English literature at all. But how true is that claim, finally? The particular joy of Jeffrey's dictionary is that while demonstrating that, yes indeed, the Bible is everywhere in English literature, it takes you to places in English literature that you haven't been and, even better, to places in European literature European literature refers to the literature of Europe. European literature includes literature in many languages; among the most important are English literature, Spanish literature, French literature, Polish literature, German literature, Italian literature, Greek that you have never thought of visiting. William B. Eerdmans is a publishing house with a Protestant Evangelical tradition. But Jeffrey, one of whose several books is The Early English Early English Noun a style of architecture used in England in the 12th and 13th centuries, characterized by narrow pointed arches and ornamental intersecting stonework in windows Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality (1975), has written what I would call a Catholic book. Bible scholarship of the usual historical sort is mostly trapped in a period from about 1200 B.C. to about A.D. 200. The process by which the Bible made its way from its complex Eastern Mediterranean origins into European literature and through Europe into England--well, whoever teaches that, Bible scholars usually don't. To an extent, the usual biblical curriculum reflects a Protestant tendency to leap directly from Paul to Luther as one might fly from coast to coast, not much noticing the Mississippi Valley. Figuratively speaking, Jeffrey spends plenty of time along the Mississippi. The endorsements that this book arrived with in 1992 included some--I speak as a jaded erstwhile book editor--that are not to be had at any price: John Updike, Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode (born 29 November, 1919), is a British literary critic. Frank Kermode was born on the Isle of Man, and was educated at Douglas High School and Liverpool University. , Robertson Davies William Robertson Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL (born August 28, 1913, at Thamesville, Ontario, and died December 2, 1995 at Orangeville, Ontario) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. , John Macquarrie, Bruce Metzger, Walter Ong. Updike's measured superlative was: "A prodigious piece of scholarship, indispensable in the libraries of Anglophone Christendom." Among the others, I might single out, quoting only in part, Davies: "It promises to be a wonderful book for the student and the browser and it should be of inestimable in·es·ti·ma·ble adj. 1. Impossible to estimate or compute: inestimable damage. See Synonyms at incalculable. 2. value to scholars, teachers, and writers." This has certainly been my experience. I go to it often and rarely come away without something wonderful that I hadn't gone in looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. . I quite believe the jacket flap claim that the book was sixteen years in the making. They were years well spent. This is an opus magnum full of erudition er·u·di·tion n. Deep, extensive learning. See Synonyms at knowledge. Erudition of editors—Hare. Noun 1. , judgment, and mature humanity. |
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