The Book: a History of the Bible (review)

180 Reviews contradicts the narrative's message. The need to control the desiring (pagan) gaze is an issue in these 12th century images where a juxtaposed image of a man gazing at a nude male sculpture resonates with Christian presentations ofpagan cults as homoerotic. Although she makes reference to homoeroticism in these discussions, there is very little reference to the lesbian gaze, nor to readings that counter the overt masculine viewpoint (such as Patricia Simons' and Erica Rand's essays in Whitney Davis' Gay and Lesbian Studies in Art History (New York, 1994). Caviness does track the changes in the imagery of Lot's wife in the 13th century, which reinforced the danger of such looks by disembodying the wife's image. Throughout the book she reiterates the changing emphases in the iconography and the internal (and external) pressures on the image. While a challenging read, the ideas located in this text are provocative and Caviness's juxtaposition of 20th century art works with medieval ones reinforces and complicates further the points she makes. Her drawing on recent discussions on the 'abject', for example, in her discussion of relics and body parts as a strategy to de-eroticise the female body certainly pushed me to reconsider m y own readings of these works. Judith Collard Art History and Theory University ofOtago De Hamel, Christopher, The Book: a History of the Bible, London, Phaidon, 20 cloth; pp. xi, 352; 237 colour illus.; R R P AUS$69.95; ISBN 0714837741. The Bible is undoubtedly the single most important book produced in Europe and in the countries colonized by Europeans. Countless different versions and innumerable copies of it have been written or printed over the course of the last two millennia. As a result, the study of the history of the Bible is central to any history of manuscripts and printed books. Christopher D e Hamel even goes so far as to suggest that his title could well have been 'The Bible: a History of the Book' - though this seems to ignore the significance of book production outside the European orbit, and especially of the Quran in Islamic countries. In tackling such a vast subject - 'perhaps the biggest subject in the world' (p. vi) - D e Hamel is careful to define and specify his focus. H e is interested exclusively in the Bible as a book, in its changing manifestations as a physical object. H e points to the essentially unchanging nature of the basic Biblical text, Reviews 181 despite its different versions and languages, as a reason for leaving textual issues alone. He emphasizes that he is not interested in theology or in the meaning of the Bible, and he carefully sidesteps the question of divine inspiration. In chronological terms, he concentrates quite heavily on the Bible in the Middle Ages. In fact, his treatment of the medieval Bible occupies almost half of the length of the book, covering along the way such topics as Bible commentaries , picture books and portable Bibles. For the Early M o d e m period, there is an entire chapter on the Gutenberg Bible and a lengthy discussion of the Bibles of the Protestant Reformation. In contrast, the period from the 18th century onwards is covered in only about 50 pages, including a chapter on missionary Bibles. There is very little on the Bible in the 20th century. Although he observes at one point (p. xi) that the story of the Bible 'ends with information technology', there is no treatment of electronic Bibles or of the various manifestations of the Bible on the Web. The final chapter, in fact, is devoted to the 'search for origins' in the form of the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christian papyri. In keeping with his interest in the Bible as a physical object, the focus throughout is on 'new manifestations of the Bible text' (p. xi).'As a result, it is mainly Protestant Bibles - rather than Catholic Bibles - which feature in the later sections, especially in the period from the 18th century onwards. The geographical and linguistic emphasis is on Western Europe, and particularly on Bibles in Latin or English. Nevertheless, early Hebrew and Greek Bibles form the...