Question Box

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Further questions on beginning the study of Scripture.
FOLLOWING the July 22 Question Box on how to begin studying the Bible, and the full postbag which followed I would like to consider further points.
Firstly, a person should make this study since this will affect the basis from which he works, and the goal he seeks.
Is he seeking a fuller appreciation of salvation history — its development and its significant stages — so as to be able to make more of the Christian Faith he has, or to make sense of all the readings at Mass?
Is he seeking to discover what the New Testament inherited from the Old and the continuity therefore between them?
Does he want to make a spiritual journey with the Jews as doctrine develops, or is he more concerned with just the vital points where beliefs can be seen to have become established? In other words, how deep does he wish to make his study?
A parallel might be drawn with someone interested in the British constitutional monarchy, who might take the milestones in its history like the execution of Charles I and the restoration, of his son, or who might prefer to follow its history from its preNorman origins.
Does he want to watch the Hebrew civilisation grow and find comparisons with neighbouring people's?
Or does he want to make a literary exercise of his study, seeing how the language was formed and used, how traditions were passed on and with whom they rested, how oral material was consigned to writing?
The reason for making the study affects its starting point. These starting points of course arc all related and cannot stand without each other.
For example, if a comparison is being made between the Jewish civilisation and its neighbours, then to just notice
the similarity between Babylonian myths and part of the Old Testament would not give a true picture of the Bible unless this was married up with a great many other things.
Other starting points might be from what was the underlying purpose of the Jews in having a religion and putting it into writing, (i.e. their relations with their saving God).
Or there is the place of oral tradition in the lives of the Old Testament Jews, with the tenacious memory they had, and the consequent degree of trustworthiness in what came to be written down centuries after it had happened, and whether it was still primitive tradition or had been refined in the process.
Or there is the growth and the place of important institutions in the Old Testament and Biblical period, whether the monarchy, the Temple, or the Passover.
And so on.
Now where to start.
In my own experience, and perhaps in that of other priests too, academic life in the seminary and after ordination
are two different things.
Whereas in the seminary one may be in the thick of . developments, and familiar with the very best of up-to-date books, it is easy on the parish to lose touch.
For this reason, when I wanted to discover the best stock in trade for a Scripture scholar recently I did not go to the book shops to see what they had, and make my own judgement, but instead contacted the diocesan catechetical centre and asked for their recommendations.
Readers who wish to do this for their own dioceses should be able to find the address in their diocP-an directories.
Having got that far, a further step is to try and form Scriptural study groups on a parish or deanery level. These would depend of course on publicity, and response, and also on a common reason for making such a study (although two or more could be combined).
A parish I was in some years ago had two such groups, which used to meet regularly and benefit considerably in the process.
Scriptural study in depth may be a large undertaking, but it is not a closed shop only for experts. All that is needed is a degree of organisation and system, and some planned study.
Queries please to Catholic Herald, Herald House, Bun/till Row, London EC,.