“The Bible was the world’s first Wikipedia article. So many hands have altered and edited the now lost originals that we will never know for sure what those originals said,” writes Doug Brown in his review of Bart D. Ehrman’s book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why.
The contemporary Episcopalian is called to draw upon all the resources of our ancient, global, multicultural and inclusive faith tradition – and that to do so will likely enrich our spiritual engagement with the Word of God so long starved by the Western attitudes of rationalism and modernity.
In her lectionary blog, Dylan Breuer poses the following question: “If Peter and Paul can disagree passionately about something that Paul and perhaps even both of them thought was about the very “truth of the gospel,” and if we can celebrate them both as apostles of Christ and heroes of the faith, why does it seem to happen so often in our churches today that any serious disagreement about an important matter of faith becomes an occasion to condemn one party as not only completely wrong, but outside the bounds of Christianity itself?”
A little over a year ago, David Plotz of Slate set out to write blog entries on the entire Hebrew Bible. This week, some 39
It should go without saying, but bears repeating anyway, that Jesus and his disciples were all Jews. The Church emerged from Judaism, and was literally born with a Bible in its cradle. The New Testament itself may be seen as a first-century Jewish collection, and it behooves us
The center of the Daily Office is dwelling in the house of the Psalms. As the years turn, we wend our way through the pages of Holy Writ but our home, our abiding dwelling, is in the house of the Psalms. It has ever been so. Whether we recite them weekly…
Diana Butler Bass explores how her travels through faith have always been accompanied by the Bible—but, she notes, not always the same translation. Her essay relates a journey from her first, now dog-eared Revised Standard Version given to her in 1967, through more evangelical-friendly editions in the 70s, to an eye-opening moment in 1989 when the NRSV provided her with a fresh insight into Ephesians 5:21-22.
The Bible is not a magical instrument, but it has the ability to put the reader or reading community “in touch with the living God who can give you spiritual life just as he has given you natural life,” writes the English evangelist Michael Green. “The written word can put you in touch with Jesus the living word (or self-disclosure) of God.”
It’s the Easter season and we bask in the glow of the resurrection. Our services include mystical musings from the Gospel of John, dramatic stories from the Acts of the Apostles and—the Book of Revelation?
“In showing their willingness to take on such risks, the people in these parishes are making a strong statement against friends, acquaintances, and members of their own families who are gay or at least sympathize with gay people—sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings.”