If you haven’t encountered them yet, you probably soon will. In fact, you may receive one or more as a Christmas present. I refer to the new series of individual books of the Bible, published by Canongate and called ‘Pocket Canons’, which have just appeared amid controversy. The controversy is caused by the short introduction provided in each case, followed by the text from the King James Bible. Each introduction is provided by a thinker or writer who is not necessarily a Christian; the list includes atheists and Buddhists. Inevitably this has caused an upset. The other day I was trapped in a London bookshop by a cloudburst outside and managed to read the (brief) introductions to most of the series so far available.

The Bible is literature – indeed it is a library of literature contained within two covers – and therefore lends itself to prologues just as other literature does, such as the series of Classics published by so many different houses. On the other hand it is also a vessel of faith. It has also been the object of an enormous amount of scholarly study. One might object to someone who had just read the work for the first time writing a prologue to a novel by Jane Austin; on the other hand one might be grateful for new, and fresh, inspirational insights, even if not propped up by scholarship.

Such is the case with the new series. The Book of Revelation, as Will Self says, indeed borders on the weird; but if one knows that it is has a cryptic message to inspire faith under persecution, it looks rather different. Mark’s Gospel, as Nick Cave writes, does indeed surprise by the gaps in the narrative where one longs to know more. The Book of Genesis indeed shows some ‘unjust’ acts by God (Steven Rose), but one needs to read them alongside the later revelation of other Biblical books.

Poor Fay Weldon has got it all wrong about St. Paul, suggesting that his letters take away all the freedom of the Gospel story – when in fact it is was the communities he founded who started doing that, and he had to try to put them straight.