“A landmark…If you have time to read only one book on the Bible this year, make sure that it is this one.”—Katherine J. Dell, Church Times “Excellent…With a sure touch, the authors lead the reader through the geopolitical context of the Hebrew Bible and the setting and background of the New Testament, finding something to say about practically every book’s origins and development.”—John Barton, The Tablet “A remarkable deep dive into foundational books whose origins are often taken for granted.”—Publishers Weekly In this revelatory account of the making of the foundational text of western civilization, a world-renowned scholar of the Hebrew scriptures joins a noted authority on the New Testament to reconstruct Jewish and Christian scriptural histories and reveal the underappreciated contest between them. The New Testament, they show, did not develop in the wake of an Old Testament set in stone. The two evolved in parallel, often in conversation with each other, ensuring a continuing