Collins Gem Bible Guide
By Raymond Brown
HarperCollins Publishers. . 310 pages. £3.99
ISBN 0 00 479281 6
Many a schoolboy and schoolgirl have been indebted over the years to the Collins Gem Dictionaries of various kinds. First published in 1990, this little paperback (in the same format) is an introduction to the whole Bible.
Besides giving the background and a structured overview of every Bible book, there is a helpful sketch of the whole of Bible history and lucid ideas from Raymond Brown on how to study the Bible. Of course, it is necessarily brief and therefore skates over some important questions. Nevertheless at a time of increasing Bible illiteracy, even among church people, this is a valuable book. It will enable ordinary Harry and Sally (especially if new Christians) to find that they can grasp the main message of Jeremiah or Galatians in a brief 10-minute read.
