In Discordance with the Scriptures: American Protestant Battles over Translating the Bible

Winner of the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History

Named a Booklist top 10 book in religion

“A first-rate intellectual history of Protestants’ elusive quest for the perfect English translation of the Bible.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Scrupulous scholarship provides a much-needed historical context for the fiery polemics of clerics who turned the new translations of the Bible into a battlefield. . . . With subtle insight, Thuesen examines American Protestants’ demands that the holy text be examined against the empirical record of events, . . . and he shrewdly dissects the expedients Protestants have had to adopt to resolve the crisis in interpretive authority. . . . [N]o one who wants to understand the place of the Bible in American culture can ignore this book.”

—Bryce Christensen, Booklist

“Thuesen … is an unusually creative and intelligent scholar who writes vividly and gracefully. . . . [His] remarkable book forces us to rethink our habit of reading the Tanakh as though it were Christian.”

—David Watt, Christian Century

“It is difficult to imagine anyone doing a better job than Thuesen in charting a course through this fascinating, if at times frustrating, territory. . . . It should become a standard resource in its own right and a stimulus for research in many directions.”

—Leonard J. Greenspoon, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

“Thuesen’s fine book is as important for historians of American culture as it is for believers in the Bible’s unique importance.”

—Mark A. Noll

Select Commentary & Media coverage

“Top 10 Books in Religion,” Booklist, October 1, 2000.

Jack Miles, “Appendix II: The Bible as Rose Window (or, How Not to See Through the Bible),” from Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God (New York: Knopf, 2001).

Anthony Grafton, “Getting the Word Out,” New Republic, January 22, 2007.

Daniel Burke, “Did Isaiah Really Predict the Virgin Birth?” Religion News Service, Huffington Post, December 13, 2012.