The book begins with a twenty-one-page introduction, which gives a survey of the formation of the Bible in general, and a discussion of extant biblical manuscripts in Church Slavonic. The remainder of the 164-page basic text is split into seven sections: “Before Cyril and Methodius,” “Cyril,” “Methodius,” “Ohrid and Preslav,” “The Second Bulgarian Empire,” “Kievan Rus’ and Muscovy,” and “Russia.” A 75-page set of endnotes a 50-page bibliography, and a good index make up the remainder of the book. The book has virtually no misprints.

In the Preface Cooper lists a variety of people for whom the book is intended. This includes, according to him, “those interested in Bible studies whose own linguistic abilities may not extend to a reading knowledge of the Slavic languages.” In spite of Cooper’s very readable prose, I suspect that anyone who wants to get full benefit from this book will need to have some prior knowledge of a Slavic language and a general knowledge of Slavic history and culture.

Even in the Introduction Cooper quotes Church Slavonic passages in the Church Slavonic script. He covers the political, historical, and cultural events in “Morava” (as he judiciously refers to it), Bulgaria (including what is now Macedonia), Rus’ and Moscovy, Ukraine, Russia, Mt. Athos, Serbia, and the states adjoining all of these. He does so very skillfully, but the sheer amount of material and the limited amount of space available inevitably produce something of the feeling that one would get from a quick familiarization tour of Eastern Europe: “If this is Tuesday/1350, that must be Turnovo/Ivan Alexander.”

Cooper is forced to presume, it seems to me, at least some background knowledge of medieval Slavic matters or else an extraordinary ability on the part of a neophyte to remember names, movements, and places. This need for some background in medieval Slavic facts simply underscores the extent to which they constitute part of the cultural background of all members of the Slavic Orthodox community and emphasizes the fact that foreign students of Slavic languages, literatures, and cultures need to internalize some of the basic material in order to be able to react appropriately when dealing with materials which presume this background.

Cooper writes in a smooth and lucid style. he offers a sophisticated yet accessible analysis of the formation of the Church Slavonic version of the Bible. He touches on a large variety of questions, and offers thoughtful alternatives to some of the assumptions which have been handed down from generation to generation and book to book without close examination. A good example is his analysis of the Zhitie of Constantine/Cyril. Teachers and students of Slavic languages and cultures tend to regard this hagiographical text as concerned primarily with glorifying Cyril’s work on behalf of the Slavs, but it is difficult to explain why Cyril’s mission to the Slavs takes up only a relatively modest part of the work. Cooper considers the matter in its entire context, and offers convincing reasons for accepting the work as a balanced unified whole in which the mission to the Slavs is only one part of a greater design. Such careful analysis and study of diverging possible explanations is characteristic of the whole book.

Slavic Scriptures is a book that I wish had been available when I first entered the field, or at least in mid-career. The thoroughness of the bibliography and the notes makes them an essential resource and reference for all future studies on this topic, as well as for anyone doing serious work with medieval Slavic texts of any sort, not just Biblical texts. It can be read with profit by every teacher and advanced student of the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Orthodox Slavs.