On September 30, 1943, His Holiness Pope Pius XII issued his now famous encyclical on scripture studies. Divino afflante Spiritu. He wrote : "We ought to explain the original text which was written by the inspired author himself and has more authority and greater weight than any, even the very best, translation whether ancient or modern. This can be done all the more easily and fruitfully if to…
There is a story behind every book. That is certainly true here. This introduction is not that story; my story comes in chapter 1. But I think it will be helpful to signal immediately why glory figures so largely in this book. My seven decades of experience with the Bible have not been mainly a battle to hold on. They have been a blessing of being held on to, namely, by beauty—that is, by glo…
Many people think you need to study Christianity to have a relationship with God. However, just because you studied something and committed it to memory does not mean you understand it and can practice it in your life. You need to study more deeply more than that. Studying the Bible, its structure, simplicities, perplexities, and analogies gives you the skills that are necessary to have relatio…
The Bible in the Bowls represents a complete catalogue of Hebrew Bible quotations found in the published corpus of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic magic bowls. As our only direct epigraphic witnesses to the Hebrew Bible from late antique Babylonia, the bowls are uniquely placed to contribute to research on the (oral) transmission of the biblical text in late antiquity; the pre-Masoretic Babylonian vo…