Engaging the Bible as Scripture: Reading Scripture for All It’s Worth

Instructor: Dr. Barbara Green, O.P.

What are the challenges of reading the Bible not simply as a wonderful (if difficult) book but also as Scripture: formative and normative, challenging and sustaining for us, despite and because of its many complexities and struggles of our lives?  In an age when we may feel bored with what we have heard so many times, and when many would reach for texts from other traditions to engage our fading attention, how can we re-engage our biblical tradition so that it speaks deeply to our complex existential situations better than it often seems to do?  A set of four sessions will indicate some of the challenges of deepening our engagement with our classic texts, suggest some modes of filtering them through the lives we are presently living, will remain respectful of how our forebears have read while maintaining that simply to repeat their methods and insights are not sufficient.  We will, in each session, sharpen our questions, review some theory, and engage a text to suggest how ‘Scripturing’ might work.