“Surely you can't criticize the Bible like you do ordinary books?" This common response to the ldea of biblical criticism has never been shared by the Catholic Church. From the earliest years her scholars have been perfecting the tools of textual and historical criticism in order to reach a deeper understanding of God's unique message to man which was transmitted through men who used the literary forms, styles and conventions of their age. This book traces the whole story of biblical criticisin from Origen and Jerome through the Middle Ages and the crisis at the Reformation, when the Bible was erroneously put forward as the sole source of faith and authority, right down to the modernist controversy and the subsequent establishinent of the contemporary school of criticism by Lagrange. Nowadays, when the great development of archaeology and philology make it possible to date the books of the Old Testament with confidence and to see the history of Israel in the general setting of the ancient Middle East, the wonder of God's revelation, far from being diminished, is enhanced, its eternal freshness and enduring relevance made startlingly clear.