n William Tyndale’s version (1525), as in most subsequent versions, the Gospel of John begins, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God: and the word was God. And in the beginning, the Word was in Hebrew, and then in Greek, and then in Latin, and then it was cobbled together into the English version we now know as the King James, or Authorized Version of 1611. But if 1611 seems to us like a long time ago, it is a relatively recent date in the Bible’s long and tortuous journey from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate of 405 to our own language. Benson Bobrick’s book is about that journey.

Today we take for granted that the holy scriptures of a religious faith should be in the vernacular of the faithful. But as early as a documented case in 1233, the first question ever asked by an Inquisitor of a Ôheretic’ was whether he knew any part of the Bible in his own tongue. It was the job of the Church to select what portions of the Bible should be known to the laity and how those passages would be interpreted. For with ready access to any document and the ability to read it, human beings begin to ask questions, and inevitably to interpret what they read. And that confers a certain freedom that brings with it an implicit challenge to established authority. The Inquisitors were rightly concerned about who had been reading what.

The story is as much a political and social history as it is a religious and linguistic one. One of the biggest and most persistent struggles was between those of Puritan inclination and those with more traditional views. The Pilgrims who came to American shores were of course Puritans, and their influence in our own history and thinking is difficult to overstate. Bobrick explains how the quest for freedom of religious belief led almost inevitably to the quest for personal freedom. And it is on this basis that he makes his claim, difficult to refute, that the translation of the Bible into the English language was of greater historical significance than its rendering into any other vernacular. For the English Bible had given its readers the idea of the equality of man. . . . It was the idea of the sacred and equal importance of every man, as made in the image of God. Bobrick skillfully manages to entice the reader to accompany him on what turns out to be a fascinating and often surprising journey.

Carl Smith teaches at the Blair School of Music of Vanderbilt University.

he last days of a person’s life say a lot. In the case of Jesus Christ, they say everything. In a book that will appeal to the faithful of all ages, author and pastor Charles Swindoll tackles the subject of Christ’s death and resurrection in a fashion that not only breaths life but hope into readers. Swindoll is anything but a newcomer to the publishing industry. He has authored more than 25 best-selling books and has an internationally syndicated radio program, Insight for Living. Yet it’s his heart for teaching and guiding people in a practical way that permeates his writing. Swindoll serves as senior pastor of Stonebriar Community Church and president of Dallas Theological Seminary. But don’t fear. The Darkness and the Dawn isn’t a theological treatise. Rather, it’s a look at the final agony and ecstasy of Christ that sheds new light on an event that occurred two millennia ago. Chapter by chapter Swindoll walks readers through the final days of Christ’s life. From the profound interactions of the Last Supper to the events of Gethsemane to the series of trials to the final phrases uttered on the cross, Swindoll explores the many facets of Christ’s last days. The recounting of the crucifixion is particularly stirring. Even those who do not embrace Swindoll’s faith will find thought-provoking material and life-enhancing truths.

The short chapters give the book an almost devotional quality. Scenes and themes are explored in bite-sized reading portions. Swindoll touches on a rich handful of topics, including mortality, submission, obedience, hope, betrayal, disappointment, encouragement and the importance of life. The writing is both accessible and edifying, making it a rich reading experience not only at Easter but year-round.

Margaret Feinberg is a writer based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who writes for a number of Christian publications.

The conflict between fundamentalism and mainstream society is familiar across cultures and centuries. We’ve seen it emerge within religious faith, between faiths, and even wearing the mask of politics and human rights. Will the people that violate my beliefs ever give up? I can’t stand it anymore! It can make a person mad enough to be an extremist! Or an anti-extremist! In The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong gives satisfying attention to this ever-frustrating, ever-enduring issue. She shows the tense relationship between mainstream society and fundamentalists to be the result of resistance to an aggressive move towards modernization. As a former Catholic nun turned Oxford scholar, Armstrong’s credibility is reinforced by her current position as professor of comparative religion at the Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism. She practices what she teaches: compassion and understanding between disagreeing traditions.

Western civilization has changed the world. Nothing including religion can ever be the same again. All over the world, people have been struggling with these new conditions and have been forced to reassess their religious traditions, which were designed for an entirely different type of society. Armstrong develops an enlightening historical comparison between fundamentalist movements in the major monotheistic faiths: Sunni and Shii Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. By isolating the development of each in a clearly written historical context, she shows how vastly different religious traditions, often at odds with one another, actually share a crucial characteristic. Armstrong takes the reader back to 15th century Spain to make her point, which is that each embattled movement has sprung from a total dread of modernity. By showing how modernism and fundamentalism are fed and strengthened by each other in a symbiotic relationship, Armstrong encourages understanding between opposing sides instead of continually intensifying resistance. In fact, while Armstrong recognizes fundamentalism as truly modern, she notes that extremism can distort and thereby defeat the original beliefs it hopes to preserve, and that mainstream society’s suppression of fundamentalism avoids a core issue of cultural preservation. Amy Ryce is a writer living in Nashville, Tennessee.

On June 1, 1994, Joel Rothschild walked into the apartment of his close friend Albert Fleites and found him dead from suicide. Both men were HIV-positive and had seen many of their friends’ lives ended by AIDS. During the course of their friendship, the two had made a promise to give each other advance notice if either decided to take his own life. They had also promised that the first to die would try to signal the other from the other side. Albert didn’t keep the first promise, but he did the second.

In his debut book, Joel tells the moving story about his reaction to Albert’s death and the subtle and not so subtle signals that he began receiving shortly afterwards. It is a personal account of how his life was changed by the AIDS epidemic and his inner transformation that occurred as a result.

As Joel and Albert battled their illnesses and faced the deaths of many of their friends, they talked at length about their hopes and fears about dying. A visit to a hypnotherapist convinced Joel that no disease is 100 percent fatal and some survive because of inner strength.

As a distraught and betrayed Joel was leaving Albert’s apartment on the day of his suicide, Joel received the first signal from Albert in the form of an inner prompting from his deceased friend to look in the trash can outside. At the bottom of the can underneath the dirty garbage, Joel found a draft of a letter that Albert had written reassuring him that he was his dearest friend and would always love him. Joel considered suicide as a response to Albert’s death, but he was swayed by another visit from Albert’s presence which conveyed that he must not take his own life. During that visit, Albert told him that every moment is important, that events and situations are working themselves out in every second, and that all suffering is connected to a greater good.

Albert’s presence continued to make itself known in more subtle ways. Joel increased his receptivity to these events and began receiving messages from Albert and other presences. With the advent of protease inhibitors, Joel’s health did improve, and he began starting new projects and friendships. He also had a greater appreciation for life and a determination to help others.

Whether one accepts the events that Joel presents as signals from Albert or writes them off as mere coincidences, Signals is the inspiring story of a man who rebuilt his life in spite of a life-threatening illness and a great loss.

The greatest pleasures of Reason for Hope are found in the passages about the chimpanzees of Gombe, Africa, to which Goodall is passionately devoted, and in her insights into spirituality and human moral evolution. Her stories are so brimming with emotion and her philosophical views so unpretentious and calming that one has the impression of sitting cozily with a friend.

Dr. Goodall portrays the events of her life as building upon each other and pointing her directly toward Africa, chimpanzees, and her work in environmental preservation. Early on she felt a deep empathy for animals and a desire to study them unobtrusively in their natural habitats. She relates a delightful memory of hiding out in the straw of a henhouse at the age of four to experience first-hand how a chicken lays an egg.

When Dr. Louis Leakey offered her a job studying the chimpanzees of Gombe, she began her life’s work. Her chimpanzee observations are captivating, as are the comparisons between them and humans. The chimpanzees have tender, caring relationships, but can also be ruthless toward members of the outgroup. She sees human precursors to both altruism and savage brutality in the chimpanzees.

Religion and spirituality factor greatly in Goodall’s life. She feels God (the same God all religions share) all around her, but especially in the jungles of Africa. What makes her book such a delight is her unbridled, intelligent optimism.

Although deeply affected by the genocide, terrorism, animal cruelty, deforestation, and other horrors of our age, she has faith in the potential goodness of the human race, and in the benevolence of God. Her strong views are delivered so rationally, and in such a serene way, that not a trace of condescension or bitterness shows through. She is a beautiful role model for these sometimes ugly days. ¦ Julie Anderson writes and stays home with her two sons.

eart of gold. Gold at the end of the rainbow. Goldilocks, gold rush, golden mean. In The Power of Gold, Peter Bernstein investigates the phenomenon responsible for so much love and theft, bloodshed and joy. Gold is as much a symbol to us as an actual precious metal (its symbol in the periodic table is Au, as in aurora, or shining like the dawn).

Its presence in myth bears this out, as Bernstein writes. He notes that we should not be too hard on Midas, the famous king whose wish that everything he touched turned to gold came true. Bernstein writes that Midas’s rash wish was really just one for a shortcut, or “a choice made without regard to the consequences,” something to which readers can relate, even if they have never turned anything to gold.

Bernstein not only tells the story of gold throughout the history of civilization, but discusses the very real ways in which it affected currency and monetary systems worldwide. He notes that to this day no tourists are allowed to enter Fort Knox, and observes that “As the need for money grows, it rapidly inspires innovation to make it function more efficiently and conveniently.” But it is the sheer intrigue of the stories Bernstein tells, and not their efficiency, that makes The Power of Gold so interesting. He writes about the Byzantine emperors, Marco Polo, the London bank Baring Brothers, and the Gilded Age with equal liveliness. Those years of the Gilded Age, in particular, saw a paucity of monetary gold, and the American market rocketed around as a partial effect of this lack. Again, symbol followed history, as Bernstein writes of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, “Great decisions were afoot that would press down the crown of thorns on the brow of labor and crucify mankind on a cross of gold. What powerful language might Bryan have mustered had he lived to witness the outcome?” As for gold in the present day, Bernstein issues caveats after seeing the ravages that gold has created over the years. As he warns, “Gold and its surrogates make sense only as a means to an end: to beautify, to adorn, to exchange for what we need and really want.” Eliza R.

L. McGraw lives and writes in Cabin John, Maryland.

To the legion of readers who have already enjoyed How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill’s distinctive style needs no introduction. This time he lends his reverent erudition and irreverent wit to an exploration of an earlier history: the origins of Western culture. As Cahill says in his Introduction, “the Jews started it all.” In other words, the Irish may have saved civilization, but the Jews invented it.

The Gifts of the Jews is not, as the title may imply, a tiresome catalogue of Jewish achievements (“Casimir Funk discovered vitamins!”). Cahill uses the Hebrew Bible to illustrate general and specific ways Jews altered the course of human thought broke the momentum and forced from its cyclical track the perpetually spinning wheel of primeval history.

Discussion of the Bible starts before the Bible, to establish the critical contrast between old and new. For example, he shows that every ancient society throughout the world shared a “cyclical worldview.” There simply was no beginning, middle, or end to anything. Historical consciousness had not yet appeared. Human life existed to propitiate nature gods in a never-ending cycle of birth, copulation, and death. In developing this background, Cahill invokes the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh to show its influence on, and contrast to, the later storytelling content and styles of the Hebrew Bible.

Cahill’s depictions of the Biblical heroes invest near-cinematic life into characters many of us half-remember from long-ago Sunday school lessons. Abraham, Moses, David: the exploits of these few charismatic leaders and visionaries transform the course of human history. Through them, the core ideas of our civilization ethical monotheism, human justice, individual destiny, and history itself come into the world.

Cahill insists that this volume is not intended to be an introduction to Judaism or the Bible, but it could certainly be used to supplement one. It takes the lay reader into religious and philosophical territory that may seem too formidable under other guises. In the author’s hands this is accessible stuff, relayed to us with intelligence and clarity as an entertaining, compelling, and concise historical narrative.

By the way, a reader’s personal religious outlook is not an issue in this book. As the author says, his purpose is “to discover in this unique culture of the Word some essential thread that runs through it, to uncover in outline the sensibility that undergirds the whole structure, and to identify the still-living sources of our Western heritage for contemporary readers, whatever color of the belief-unbelief spectrum they may inhabit.” The Gifts of the Jews follows How the Irish Saved Civilization as the second volume in a proposed series of seven entitled The Hinges of History. Like the first two, subsequent volumes are to “recount a pivotal chapter in the evolution of human sensibility, moments in the Western world when the course of civilization was changed forever.” Such works could only encourage greater understanding, tolerance, and hope concerning ourselves, our neighbors, and our own places in history (Jewish concepts, all). That these books are finding such a wide general readership is, in itself, a reason for hope.

Reviewed by Joanna Brichetto.

For pilgrims and seekers Over the centuries Christians have considered Rome almost as sacred as Jerusalem. Nothing proves this better than a stunning new book entitled Pilgrimage: A Chronicle of Christianity Through the Churches of Rome. The book unites a respectful but nicely gossipy text by June Hager, who has been writing about the churches of Rome for 15 years, with hundreds of beautiful photos by Grzegorz Galazka, who is one of the official papal photographers. All of the requisite stops on the tour are here, of course the Sistine ceiling, the towering dome of Saint Peter’s. But you encounter more than the top ten tourist sights. From Filippino Lippi’s amazing frescoes in Rome’s only Gothic church, S. Maria Sopra Minerva, to the S. Andrea della Valle’s Barberini Chapel, where Puccini set the first act of Tosca, the tour rambles engagingly from one unexpected stop to the next.

Pilgrimage will make you yearn to go to Rome, and you will need a guidebook worthy of your new ambition. Fortunately Fodor’s has anticipated your every wish with a new full-color guide in their Thematic Itineraries series, Holy Rome: Exploring the Eternal City: A Millennium Guide to the Christian Sights ($21, 0679004548).

Handy cross-referencing allows you to move easily between essays and site maps. Sidebars provide useful historical and cultural information. Calendars give schedules of millennial celebrations. More than 200 photos show an up-to-date Rome, after the current restorations of many monuments. Where is the only evidence of an Arian cult in the whole of Rome? Which church claims to have the chalice from which St. John drank poison? What are the best times to visit the most popular sites? The answers are all here.

Before you go, you may want to read up on Christianity and other beliefs in the newest contribution to Merriam-Webster’s lineup of world-class reference books the fat, gorgeous Encyclopedia of World Religions ($49.95, 0877790442). These 1,181 pages literally range from the African Methodist Episcopal Church to Zen, with stopovers in between for Halloween and the Qabbalah. You will find the dietary restrictions of the Jains and the Sermon on the Mount, Joan of Arc and the apocryphal Pope Joan, the concept of Limbo and a biography of spiritualist Madame Blavatsky. Whether you seek information on the Twelve Tribes of Israel or the Five Pillars of Islam, on Odin or Billy Graham, this impressive, exhaustive work will provide the answer.

Like the rest of the family, the Virgin Mary works in mysterious ways. Here’s proof: a somewhat irreverent, even off-putting author, who revels in knee-jerk unconventionality and self-styled religious kitsch, and is prejudiced against Jesus “for being a man,” actually manages to convince her readers that she may indeed be well on her way to becoming a committed Christian.

Or at least an avid follower of Mary. A lapsed Catholic most of her early life, Beverly Donofrio (Riding in Cars with Boys) found herself brooding day after day in a rocker over her “pathetically impoverished life,” and the mess she had made of her first 40 years. After six years of incremental steps toward faith, she “landed in Bosnia,” on assignment from National Public Radio to research the phenomenon of Mary apparitions. In the holy city of Medjugorje, where Mary presumably appeared in 1981 to six children and has made regular appearances ever since, Donofrio, preparing for her first confession in 35 years, retraces her growing fascination with the mother of Jesus. Collecting throws, banners, postcards, pictures of the Virgin, she discovers the attraction of what has become through the centuries a strong cult of devotion to Mary, especially among those who feel a lack of feminine warmth in the patriarchal images of traditional Christianity.

For Donofrio, the need is even greater: from childhood she has doggedly defied authority, resulting in a life marked by tragic mistakes from which she has gained “no insight, no wisdom.” Worst of all, she faces the prospect of permanently losing the love of her son through her own lack of maternal judgment and good sense. At last, in Medjugorje, she admits to herself how desperately she wants that “little mustard seed of faith to move the mountain that is me out of the dark and into the light.” Donofrio’s enthusiasms (rosaries, medals, marble statues) are not always catching, but her religious experiences will appeal to everyone who has ever felt desperate to plumb the depths of Shakespeare’s observation that “there are more things in heaven and earth” than are ever dreamed of in secular philosophy.

Maude McDaniel writes from her home in Cumberland, Maryland.

Ever since he composed his first line of hand-set type in 1969, Barry Moser, the extraordinarily talented book designer and illustrator of literary classics and children’s books, has dreamed of doing a Bible. With the publication of Moser’s magnum opus, The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible which he designed, handcrafted, and illustrated his dream is realized. It is a triumph of bookmaking and the art of the illustrated Bible. Using contemporary human beings, among other sources, as models, Moser presents over 230 images, with at least one for almost each book in the Bible. The last major work by a single illustrator to come close to the completeness Moser has achieved is Gustave Dore’s La Sainte Bible published in 1865. Moser observes that Dore didn’t bother with four of the five books of poetry. The best known example of an illustrated Bible in this century is Marc Chagall’s Hebrew Bible, published in 1957.

Moser emphasizes that The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible is first and foremost a reading Bible. A Bible to be enjoyed as a book as well as a sacred text. The King James Version of the Bible is used, following Frederick Scrivener’s 1873 critical edition of the Cambridge Paragraph Bible. In that edition, verse numbers were eliminated as well as much of the italic which had come to be used to indicate words not in the original languages. The design and type, composition and editing, and paper and binding have all been chosen and executed with the utmost care and expertise. The engraving medium, called Resingrave, has just recently been invented, and its results are virtually indistinguishable from wood engraving. The relief engravings, as Moser refers to them, are printed directly from the blocks.

Moser’s hope is that his pictures might draw an entirely new audience [to the Bible], an audience that might not be particularly religious. Or perhaps a religious audience who might have grown tired of the piety and indexterity that is so ubiquitous in ÔBible pictures’ . . . My intention is to strip away the layers of pious heavenmindedness that have been applied by centuries of devout limners and expose the flawed, human veneers underneath. And, indeed, the engravings do seem to portray ordinary human beings either caught up in, or at the center of, extraordinary events. The individuals are not larger than life; they are life itself. They are at turns haunting, disturbing, and tragic, but they are consistently compelling and thought-provoking. Moser’s model for Jesus was a chef at an Italian restaurant; for the Virgin Mary, a waitress; for Job, South-African playwright Athol Fugard.

Do these illustrations represent Moser’s personal interpretation of the Bible? He responds that his work is more of a personal response as opposed to interpretation. He says that a lot of my images could be seen to be sermons of sorts, and like a preacher, it would take me half an hour at least to explain what I mean. Moser, who is now 57, in fact did have a preacher’s license and served Methodist churches in his native Tennessee and in Georgia many years ago. He told a Newsweek reporter that I quit being a preacher because I fell into utter disenchantment with the church. But I never became disenchanted with the idea of God. The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible is an extraordinary achievement, but Moser does not expect everyone to like it or agree with it. I just hope it makes them think, he says. Perhaps to think on an old verse or story in a new way from a new point of view. That, after all, is the responsibility of an illustrator, otherwise it’s just a matter of making some pretty pictures and sticking them into a book and calling them illustrations. Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

A nice cuppa java This springtime coffee is being celebrated in a number of different formats. Here are some of the offerings. Fortune in a Coffee Cup: Divination with Coffee Grounds is ideal fodder for the novelty item shelf in a bookstore, coffee shop, or New Age store. The author has worked up a sizable semiology of meanings to the patterns of swirling leftover coffee grounds.

Apparently this practice is nothing new: This book is the culmination of a thousand years of oral tradition, and I believe the first time these secrets have appeared in print. If you see a padlock in the bottom of your coffee cup, it means you are feeling that too many decisions in your life are being made by others. But if you see a padlock in the middle of your cup, it’s not a good time to be readjusting your life patterns. The Coffee Book: Anatomy of an Industry from Crop to the Last Drop (The New Press, $14.95, 1565845080) presents a concise overview of the history and diversification of the coffee industry. Heavily illustrated, The Coffee Book is a pocket-size pop culture reference manual, offering bite-size infobits on international trading policies, specialty coffee roasters, even the effects of caffeine in the brain. While not in-depth analysis, this little book is nevertheless a good source for quick facts on the coffee business and its potential future, particularly in its discussion of modern coffee cultivation and environmental policy.

The presence of a number of graphs and charts helps accelerate the flow of the text. By far the most informative and satisfying book in the basket is Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World (Basic Books, $27.50, 0465036317), the product of intensive research combined with light-hearted and enthusiastic writing. The author (whose previous work was a history of Coca-Cola) traces the bean from its obscure origins in Ethiopia through its dispersal via Islamic traders, from Reformation Europe’s coffee-klatch craze to the establishment of coffee as the American drink during the Civil War, and beyond through the complex (and often bloody) intertwining of coffee cultivation with Latin American governments. The book has an extensive bibliography and pointed illustrations (several images clearly illustrate the racism inherent in early American advertising), and is a fine road map of the history of coffee and its development into one of the most traded commodities in the world.