Biblical Studies Quotes

“In the end, ethical interpretation of the Bible means to think critically about how our practices of textual engagement might help us to become both more human and more humane. We are constantly crafting and recrafting ourselves, and the goal is to do so in such a way that we contribute, even if only incrementally, more to the good in the world than to the bad. We think of the point made by Tim Beal (2011, 184), who notes that the etymological root of the word “religion” is typically taken to be the Latin religare, from the verb ligare, meaning “to bind” or “to attach” (ergo our word “ligament”). Religion, in this line of thinking, has to do with being bound to certain doctrines, ideas, or practices. But Beal points out that there is another etymology, suggested by the ancient Roman politician and philosopher Cicero, who proposed that religion derives from the Latin relegere, itself a form of the root legere, “to read” (ergo our words “legible” and even “lectionary”). “Re-ligion” becomes then a process of “re-reading,” and the shaping of a religious life (or more broadly a moral life, or more broadly still just a life) is a continual process of engagement with tradition in the context of present realities. We spoke early on in this book about the “traditioning” process that lies behind the biblical text, the way in which earlier texts and traditions are taken up in later contexts in which they are both preserved and transformed. As a result, Scripture itself presents a rich variety of voices, and sometimes one author or text disagrees with the other. It is an ongoing conversation rather than a set of settled doctrines. And it is our privilege to be invited into that conversation, to become ourselves part of the traditioning process, seeking to bring an unfolding understanding of the good into our present reality.”
― Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination

“As we begin our study of Genesis 1 then, we must be aware of the danger that lurks when we impose our own cultural ideas on the text without thinking. The Bible's message must not be subjected to cultural imperialism. Its message transcends the culture in which it originated, but the form in which the message was imbedded was fully permeated by the ancient culture. This was God's design and we ignore it at our peril.”
― John H. Walton

“Many of Paul’s friends would have assured him that the tendency to misuse the freedom of the Spirit as an excuse for enthusiastic licence could be checked only by a stiff dose of law. But Paul could not agree: the principle of law was so completely opposed to spiritual freedom that it could never be enlisted in defence of that freedom: nothing was more certainly calculated to kill true freedom. The freedom of the Spirit was the antidote alike to legal bondage and unrestrained licence.”
― F.F. Bruce, Epistle to the Galatians

“Through love, Paul said, you should make yourselves slaves to one another. Thus freedom and slavery are not simply mutually exclusive terms; they stand in the closest possible relationship to one another and can only be adequately defined in terms of object and goal: what we are slave to and what we are free for.”
― Timothy George

“God is the God of the entire cosmos; God has to do with every creature, and every creature has to do with God, whether they recognize it or not.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“[T]hese people lived close to the ground, if you will, and the natural world filled their lives. Creation was a lived reality for them prior to the development of specific ideas about creation.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“[C]reation" is not simply viewed as a matter of origination or a divine activity chronologically set only "in the beginning.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“God works creatively with already existing realities to bring about newness. This understanding also entails the idea that the present (and future) is not wholly determined by the past; God does bring the "new" into existence. [...] God also creates in and through creaturely activity.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“[T]he creativity of the human creature is such that genuinely new realities are regularly brought into being.”
― Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation

“No one can claim to be culturally literate without an understanding of the Bible, since it has influenced, directly or indirectly, nearly all of Western literature and art.”
― John A. Buehrens, Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals

“The first motivation could be called political: If you can't or won't understand the Bible, others surely will interpret it for you. The second could be called cultural or literary: Within this culture you can't be fully literature or creative, artistically or rhetorically, without an acquaintance with the Bible. But now we come to the third and most personal reason: You also can't be spiritually mature or wise simply by rejecting the Bible as oppressive. The oppressive uses of the Bible are real, but unless you learn to understand that there are other readings possible, the Bible will, indeed, simply continue to be a source of oppression for you, and not a source of inspiration, liberation, creation, and even exultation as you understand anew for yourself, at a deep and less literal level.”
― John A. Buehrens, Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals