Gary Commins, Evil and the Problem of Jesus

printed in any order. That is why the printing of one book could be shared by two printers, as it was with the earliest Prayer Book, or even by several, as with the Elizabethan version ten years later. From Blayney’s standpoint, each of those books tells a story about events that took place within printing houses. It is not, of course, a story that can be told without referring to the social and political events of the English Reformation, of which the Book of Common Prayer was both a product and an engine. Blayney sets his specialized research within as much of this wider context as he needs in order to explain the genesis of the Tudor Prayer Books as books. Although the words they contain are in the first instance black marks on paper, they are also vehicles of religious meaning, from which his account does not prescind. Liturgists and theologians might say he oversimplifies a little, but if so, it does not detract from the value of his archeological findings. The British Library has already begun to revise its online English Short Title Catalog so as to take account of what Blayney has found. The likelihood that his discoveries will need to be corrected soon, if ever, seems very small.