B-I-B-L-E that's the book for me!

I think that's how the old song goes. The Bible. The Good Book. The Word of God. For the three major monotheistic religions in the world there is a central book that contains their story and teachings. Jews - the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament). Christians - the Christian Bible (Old and New Testaments). Muslims - the Koran. Even though the Bible, for Christians, is the central document of our faith (and every Christian tradition holds this to be true), the Bible itself fills people with intimidation, fear, and can be overwhelming. First of all it's a big book, a really big book. Secondly, it's not the easiest thing to read. It wasn't written by John Grisham or Dan Brown. Thirdly, it's not meant to be read in order. The Hebrew scriptures are not arranged in chronological order. And finally, a lot of background information is needed to really understand what is going on. Knowledge about the history, culture, politics, and religion thousands of years ago is vital to fully understand what the Bible is saying.

All of this is to say - I understand the relunctance to read the Bible. In fact, today at the morning Bible study we are going to talk about this. We are going to discover how the Bible came to be, how to read the Bible, and how to pick a translation (don't worry - we'll do this in the evenings come this fall). Tomorrow I'll post some of our highlights. Until then, look at the Bible that is dusty on your shelf. Don't let it scare you. It's not meant to scare you. In fact - the opposite is true.

Fr. Steve+