Apatosauruses, velociraptors, triceratops and pterodactyls share space on Noah's ark with giraffes, lions, wolves and other creatures in a typical ‘young Earth creationist’ item from Master Books, as featured in the chapter on ‘Emerging trends in American children's Bibles’ in The Bible in American life. To his credit, the author of that chapter, Russell W. Dalton, does not indulge in the satire which regularly tempts non-creationist scholars. He faithfully describes books which lure many ‘outsiders’ to ridicule, choosing to ‘tell it straight’, and let the samples of accounts in creationist works speak for themselves. If the ark were crowded, so is this well-edited book which will find its place in the flood of serious titles about the place of the Bible in American history and present-day life.

A reviewer cannot do justice to the twenty-eight chapters which comprise this book, each of which could handily and fairly attract book-length treatment. The very extensive references in sixty-nine pages of ‘notes’ will reliably serve as guides for those who will wish for more reading after the tastings in this book. Most reviewers will likely have favourites among the chapters. Among these will be the opening overview by the three editors on ‘The Bible in American life today’ and the ‘retrospective’ historical summary by Mark A. Noll, ‘The Bible: then and now’. The ‘overview’, in which the editors present up-to-date charts and graphs, provides a visual framework for the close-ups that follow. The data come from the 2012 edition of the General Social Survey

For those who regularly observe features of public life, there may be few surprises, but it is convenient to have new information and confirmation. The graphs break the ‘public’ into five cohorts, from 18–29 and then on up. Bottom line: the older the citizens, the more likely to have read the Bible during that past year. Regions? People in the South are the most regular Bible readers; the North-East, least so. Racially? Blacks are by far the most regular Bible-readers. The King James Bible is ‘far from dead’, among the versions, but it has challengers. Why read the Bible? Naturally, ‘Personal prayer/devotions’ wins hugely, while ‘Abortion/homosexuality’ rates low, despite the presence of these issues in the news. Finally, younger citizens read using ‘internet e-devices’ more, by far, than do older ones.

The authors of the chapters occupy many professorial ranks, but all seem to have sound credentials, according to their brief biographical sketches. Some are at home with the history, for example in respect to reading the Bible with ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Romantic Era’ interests. Of course, there are chapters on ‘Whiteness’ and ‘Black’ imaginations, while ‘gender’ and ‘ethnicity’ categories reveal differences among various sectors of the population, according to the General Social Survey. One can learn here how ‘Millennials’ read the Bible, and how being at home with digital culture affects Bible-reading interests. Children get their chapter, as do sellers and buyers of Bibles.

The attention to ‘pluralism’ and ‘multi-religious’ contexts reveals significant differences among various populations. What is missing in the pluralist mix? Jews consider their Scriptures to be their Bible, but they receive only a few lines of attention in this account of ‘American life’. A chapter on ‘The [Christian] Orthodox Study Bible’ alerts one to look for other cohorts. If other alternatives to the Protestant world are measured here, one legitimately asks: ‘Where is Roman Catholicism?’ It shows up on only a couple of pages. The editors are correct: much that we know or need to know about Catholic readerships can be deduced from graphs and paragraphs on regions and ethnicity, but this does little justice to the drama in the story of ‘Catholics and the Bible in American life’.

I hope that the General Social Survey will turn up data and that editors like those who shaped this book will schedule a second volume, on Catholicism. ‘Everyone knows’ that until recent decades, Bible-reading was not encouraged among Catholics as it was among Protestants. But ecclesiastical discouragement of Bible-reading by Catholic laity and, on occasion, suppression of such reading, for example in public schools in earlier decades, along with Protestant expressions of prejudice against Catholics, would make for a revealing chapter. The story of how the Bible and biblical themes were introduced to the public from the American beginnings through liturgical uses would provide another. And the changes in approaches to the Bible since the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, and more recently, represent high drama, along with the story of the increase in biblical scholarship among Catholics.

For the rest, the editors do surprise us by following the Bible and Bible-readers into many crannies and nooks of Bible-use lore. How the Bible relates to Southern musical expression, how it is treated in scholarly circles, how First Stage Feminism treated the Bible, or, how ‘The Bible in the Evangelical imagination’ reaches the churchly orbit and, beyond it, the larger culture in which Evangelicalism has political and social impacts – all these are treated fairly, helpfully to newcomers, and by casting light on the familiar to those who have taken the Bible for granted, they inspire new curiosity.

As I conclude the review and reappraise the index, I feel an impulse to apologise to the scholar-authors who communicated so clearly and kept the overall topic of this book in mind: the editors could only allow a few pages to each of them, and the reviewer could only devote a few lines to a few of them. Let this apology be transformed into an encouragement, an advertisement: this topic and this book come close to being essential for all who live and move and have their being in the rich expanses of American culture. And let me include in that company those remote from the Bible, those that General Social Survey calls ‘Nones’, since they do not affiliate with religious groups. The ‘Nones’ consistently receive glimpses and doses of biblical traditions which this book can serve to deepen and amplify. One will learn from it much about the Bible and, certainly, about ‘American life’.