In the introduction to this new handbook from Oxford, the editors assert, “The Bible stands at the center of Reformation history” (1). It stands there because that is where sixteenth-century reformers sought to place it as part of their larger effort to recenter Christendom on Christ (5). Thus, the handbook is dedicated to examining the myriad and complicated ways that contributed to the “centering” of the Bible (4) in this pivotal period of history.

The volume is divided into five parts: The Reformation and the Biblical Canon, Reformation Bibles in Translation and Print, The Development of Reformation Biblical Hermeneutics, Reformation Bible Commentators, Reformation Exegesis and Theology of Key Texts and Themes. The handbook pays attention to both the traditional history of Reformation biblical exegesis/hermeneutics and to the cultural history of the Bible (2). While it understandably focuses on Western Europe, there are chapters on the Protestant Bible in Hungary and the Ethiopic Bible in the Reformation. The chapters are, on the whole, of high quality, with leading scholars authoring many of them.

There are important parallels between this handbook and Volume III of the New Cambridge History of the Bible, including some overlap in contributors. However, this work focuses more on individual reformers – Protestant and Catholic, male and female – and specific theological themes, as well as on the Bible as a cultural artifact, than the Cambridge volume.

An epilogue that revisited the “centering” theme of the introduction would have been welcome. It might have utilized Berndt Hamm’s concept of “normative centering” to draw the volume together. However, this handbook remains an important contribution to the study of the Bible in the Reformation. It is now an essential tool for those who are interested in this defining topic.