Abstract

The Initiation Biblique of Robert-Tricot was first published in 1939, with an enlarged edition in 1948, and was made available to a wider public in 1951 when it appeared in English translation as Guide to the Bible. The third French edition was a thorough-going revision—some chapters were entirely re-written. The most important change was, beyond all question, the chapter on Inspiration by Father P. Benoit. As an exegete and a theologian, keenly aware both of the doctrinal principles involved and of the real difficulties in the Bible, his approach to the question of inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture is truly illuminating; it disposes beforehand of a host of false problems which inevitably bedevil a notion of inspiration that is too rigid and, in fact, ‘unscriptural’. A thorough understanding of Benoit’s theory of Inspiration will rid one of a certain vague uneasiness and will leave one free to savour to the full the beauty and the riches, human as well as divine, of the Bible. The second edition of Guide to the Bible, Vol. I gives us the first nine chapters of the new Initiation Biblique. True to the spirit of the original it is not a mere translation. The bibliography has been consistently brought up to date and the translators have added very many footnotes. Besides, there are appendices which cover the idea of inspiration in Protestantism and Islam, and which give a detailed analysis of the books of the Pentateuch and an extended treatment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It would be superfluous to emphasise the excellent qualities of the work. The appearance of this new edition should be a reminder to Catholics of our incalculable debt to French biblical scholarship.