Preamble

This set of pages consists of the chapters of a book called 'The Books of the Bible', the first part of which was published in 1992 by Light Publications.  The book was written largely by my father, the late J.H.Broughton, the last few chapters being completed from his notes subsequent to his death.

At the time of writing only the first part of this work has been published in book form, the volume on the books of Genesis to Job.  The other two parts are expected soon.  Effectively this site displays the original publication and also gives a preview of the book's unpublished sections.

Although it might seem a little pedantic I have decided to reproduce the book entire, including such things as the Foreword and Preface.  I have only rearranged the book minimally to accommodate its transfer to the Web, but I have gone through the text and have made some simple modifications to improve its readability.  This is largely a matter of splitting overlong sentences (for which my father was notorious), removal of superfluous commas, and adding a very few words or phrases to preserve the sense.  On rare occasions I have added a 'Web Editor's' note, and where these occur they are clearly delineated.  The content has been absolutely preserved.

The references which are at the bottom of the pages in the first volume have been incorporated into the text.  This may explain the fact that the numbering of the other notes, which have also been included, is not contiguous.

I have also altered the order of the chapters where it seemed appropriate.  For example Lamentations has been put with the poetic books, and the chapter on the Pentateuch is placed as an introduction rather than as an appendix.  Another, purely web, ploy is to put Acts into the Gospels section.

At the time of writing only a minority of the chapters are in my hands, and only a small proportion of these are displayed on these pages.  As time goes by I hope to gradually extend the scope of the presentation.

Laurie Broughton
Eastacombe, Devon, 2001