By Karen Armstrong. The author of the sweeping histories of religion The Great Transformation (2006) and A History of God (1993) provides an excellent précis of the writing and compilation of the Bible and ensuing centuries of biblical interpretation. Armstrong traces the Bible's transformation from a miscellany of texts into scripture, to which the Jesus movement added the Gospel and the other New Testament texts pretty much in tandem with the development of midrash and the Talmud by non-Christian Jews after the 70 CE destruction of the third temple in Jerusalem. She shows both Christian and rabbinic traditions of interpretation subsequently converging upon charity or love as the essence of God.  Publisher: Grove Press; Reprint edition (November 1, 2008). Paperback: 176 pages.