Bruce Gordon joins us again. Last time he discussed his biography, Zwingli, God's Armed Prophet.

He is also author of a biography of John Calvin, professor of Yale Divinity School at Yale

Divinity School. He has a new book, a weighty volume, deeply researched, entitled The Bible,

a global history. That's our topic today. Welcome, Professor Gordon. Well, great pleasure to be

here. Thank you, Merr. First, why do to be here. Thank you, Margaret.

First, why do you call the book a global history?

What does that adjective get at?

Right. What it gets out from my perspective is that really from its earliest appearance,

the sacred writings of what will become the New Testament of the Christian communities were global. They were texts on the move. We have, you know, the counts of the Coptic Church that Mark was in Alexandria.

You know, how far did Thomas make it into the east? We have these traditions

that the texts were not static. They were not located to one area. They were constantly on the

move. And essentially, the argument of the book is that has never stopped. It's been the life

of the Bible. The Bible is not confined to Europe or North America.

It's spread to hundreds and hundreds of languages around the globe over the last centuries.

It has been part of vernacular cultures all across the globe.

And this was the story I really wanted to tell.

It's a story that fascinates me how the Bible has always had and continues to have many different lives in different cultures, both shaping those cultures, shaping those languages,

and of course, through interpretation, worship, and devotion being shaped by them.

We have a nice quote that I pulled out that applies perfectly to what you just said.

It's in the introduction.

You say, quote, the Bible is constantly becoming itself.

Eternal and perfect, but each version or addition reflects what it cannot be because it is the work

...