Debates about the authority of the Bible are nearly as old as the Church. Which of the many versions of the Scriptures should be preferred? Could a translation have the authority of the original? Which of the numerous translations should be chosen? And, in case of doubt about the meaning of the Bible, who should have the last word, the Church, the scholar or the inspired reader? These questions have been asked through the ages, and in Biblical scholarship and the Church Allan Jenkins and Patrick Preston concentrate on the early Reformation when the authority of the Word was pitched against that of the Church with unprecedented intransigence. Allan Jenkins discusses the position of Origen and other church Fathers, Erasmus' contribution to the debate and, in particular detail, the controversy between Tyndale and Thomas More in the early 1530s. Patrick Preston, the author of the last two chapters, analyses Cardinal Thomas de Vio Cajetan's attitude as it emerged from his biblical commentaries, and the critique of these commentaries by Ambrosius Catharinus. Although the subject has been much studied, particularly where Erasmus, Tyndale and More are concerned, this book brings out the manner in which men who held certain common principles could disagree about the question of authority as a result of the crisis provoked by Luther. Both Tyndale and More shared Erasmus' veneration of the Greek text of the New Testament, but More believed that Tyndale's translation was swayed more by theological considerations than by philological ones, and when choosing between the age-old authority of the Church and the interpretation of the Scriptures by the individual believer he had no doubt about the superiority of the former. Cajetan and Catharinus were both Dominicans who had the welfare of the Roman Church at heart. Cajetan, however, despite his doubts about the Vulgate as a translation, appealed to the authority of Jerome, trusted in his own judgement and believed that many interpretations of the Bible could be defended. Catharinus, on the other hand, was sceptical about the value of translations and held that all doubts concerning Scripture should be resolved by the Church alone. Biblical scholarship and the Church is scholarly and generally well-written, and the inclusion of a number of relevant documents in the appendices will make it useful to students of the Reformation. Yet readers will have to accept the somewhat arbitrary connection between the two parts and cope with the often confusing organisation of the last chapters which suffer from an excessive amount of detail.