ABSTRACT
In Britain's and America's multi-ethnic society, it can no longer be taken for granted that every reader will possess good biblical knowledge. One must also remember that under the terms of the French Act of 1905 on the separation of church and state, religious instruction is forbidden in state schools (with the exception of Alsace and Lorraine). Consequently, many very highly educated French people show surprising ignorance of things biblical and this chapter should prove useful to the French reader. Translations have been included because many readers will not necessarily have a Bible to hand and this may well be the only contact they will have with the original texts. The translations of the sources have been grouped together at the end of this chapter. NB: the capitalization of nouns is not always consistent between the English and French versions of the Bible.
