Old English Biblical Prose, Paperback

Provides the first in-depth study of the earliest attempts to make the sacred words of the Bible available to English readers, clerical and lay, in prose writing. "This is a hugely valuable study - deeply informative about an important tradition of biblical translation from the early medieval period, bringing together material that has previously been considered in isolation, and drawing out a big-picture account of the ebb and flow of biblical translations into the vernacular. Will be a useful point of reference for any interested reader and includes surprises and delights for even the most specialist readers." Professor Jonathan Wilcox, University of IowaThe story of the English Bible begins not with the King James Version or Wycliffe but in the Old English period.

Between the ninth and eleventh centuries, a remarkably diverse corpus of biblical translations, paraphrases, adaptations and summaries were produced in Old English. Yet while Old English biblical verse has been extensively studied, the much larger corpus of vernacular biblical prose remains neglected by historians of the Bible and medievalists. This book provides the first in-depth study of the genre.