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Book Panel: Michael Peppard, How Catholics Encounter the Bible
Date: Tuesday, April 14 Time: 5:00 P.M. Location: Stuart Hall, Room 6
Panelists: Dr. Michael Peppard, Fordham University, Dr. Mahri Leonard-Fleckman, Princeton Seminary, Dr. Mark Smith, Princeton Seminary
How, and why did the Jesus movement — a small Jewish group born and nourished within a first-century Jewish matrix — come to be Christianity — that defined itself as separate from, and even in opposition to, Judaism? Until the modern period, Christians had a simple answer to this question. When? With the birth of Jesus. How? By the will of God. Why? To bring salvation to all humankind. By the 19th century, however, historians and theologians alike sought new explanations that adhered more closely to the “science” of biblical criticism that was gaining momentum in the field. In this talk, I will look at several explanations that were offered in the period between the mid-19th century and our own era. I will argue that these explanations were (and are) profoundly shaped by two factors: the ideas prevalent in the historians’ own eras; and historians’ views about Jews and Judaism.
In How Catholics Encounter the Bible, award-winning biblical scholar and historian Michael Peppard explores the paradoxical role of the Bible for Catholics–a book central to their tradition, but not usually in the form of a book. Biblical ideas and beliefs are more often mediated through diverse modes of storytelling, artistic imagination, and ritual. Peppard begins from the conviction that the Bible, for Catholics, is not bound with leather book covers, but with the liturgical binding of the sign of the cross, the wrought-metal framing of a stained-glass window, or the lyrical structures of a God-haunted poet. He thus de-emphasizes the act of private, individual reading and instead analyzes distinctively Catholic approaches to the Bible through ritual, literature, the arts, and ethics.
Learn More about Dr. Peppard
