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Home > Magazines > Bible Review > October 1996

Reading an Ancient Book in a Modern World

Approaching the Bible as an ancient book may explain aspects of the story that trouble us today, but this method fails to deal with the Bible as the bearer of God’s revelation.

By Bernhard W. Anderson

Jews and Christians have read aloud from the Bible in public for centuries. The liturgical practice of systematically reading through the biblical texts—usually in three-year cycles—dates back at least to post-exilic Jewish worship (Nehemiah 8:1–8), and perhaps earlier to services of covenant renewal (Deuteronomy 31:10–13). The story of Jesus’ reading from the Book of Isaiah in a synagogue on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16–21) indicates that the custom influenced the early Christian community. Later the Christian church developed its own system of scripture readings. Recently I was given the assignment of preparing a guide to help preachers interpret the lectionary […]

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Endnotes

1.

The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Version, ed. Victor Gold, Sharon Ringe, et al. (New York: Oxford, 1995).

2.

See the review by Gail R. O’Day, “Probing an Inclusive Scripture,” The Christian Century (July 3–10, 1996), pp. 692–694.

3.

See my essay, “Coexistence with God: Heschel’s Exposition of Biblical Theology,” in Abraham Joshua Heschel: Exploring his Life and Thought, ed. by John C. Merkle (New York: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 47–65. The quotation is on p. 54.