For many centuries, the Bible—the Jewish and Christian scriptures—enjoyed a place at the center of Western culture. Here was the source of law, inspiration, comfort, hope, and redemption for countless numbers of people. At the same time, the Bible was also misused; many evils were perpetrated in its name by those who believed they were in possession of the true meaning of this book. Many nations were demonized because they did not bow down to the God of the Bible or its priests and interpreters. But those days of hegemony are gone.
We live in a time when the Bible is no longer taken for granted by most educated people as a book of central importance for ethical and spiritual education. On the one hand, the Bible has passed into the hands of fundamentalists who beat out a march of absolutism and apocalypse; on the other, it has become an archeological artifact which an academic elite search for signs of a distant past.
Meanwhile the children of the Jewish and Christian traditions go looking elsewhere for their spiritual sustenance. They migrate towards the religions of the East; they become infatuated with new forms of healing and psychology; they seek the feeling of connectedness in new tribal forms, but they do not look to the Bible for the discovery of meaning, identity, or community.
The dilemma facing those of us of a liberal and pluralistic persuasion who are committed in one way of another to revitalization of the Jewish and Christian traditions and therefore to the Bible is this: How to teach or preach the Bible in such a way that its power to comfort, heal, connect, and guide us can be recaptured? Or as the Lord asks his prophet Ezekial, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
That is our question. Can we take the old, dry bones of the Bible and give them breath so that they may live again. Some of us now working in the field of Bible-study believe that Bibliodrama is part of the answer.
For many centuries, the Bible—the Jewish and Christian scriptures—enjoyed a place at the center of Western culture. Here was the source of law, inspiration, comfort, hope, and redemption for countless numbers of people. At the same time, the Bible was also misused; many evils were perpetrated in its name by those who believed they were in possession of the true meaning of this book. Many nations were demonized because they did not bow down to the God of the Bible or its priests and interpreters. But those days of hegemony are gone.We live in a time when the Bible is no longer taken for granted by most educated people as a book of central importance for ethical and spiritual education. On the one hand, the Bible has passed into the hands of fundamentalists who beat out a march of absolutism and apocalypse; on the other, it has become an archeological artifact which an academic elite search for signs of a distant past.Meanwhile the children of the Jewish and Christian traditions go looking elsewhere for their spiritual sustenance. They migrate towards the religions of the East; they become infatuated with new forms of healing and psychology; they seek the feeling of connectedness in new tribal forms, but they do not look to the Bible for the discovery of meaning, identity, or community.The dilemma facing those of us of a liberal and pluralistic persuasion who are committed in one way of another to revitalization of the Jewish and Christian traditions and therefore to the Bible is this: How to teach or preach the Bible in such a way that its power to comfort, heal, connect, and guide us can be recaptured? Or as the Lord asks his prophet Ezekial, “Mortal, can these bones live?”That is our question. Can we take the old, dry bones of the Bible and give them breath so that they may live again. Some of us now working in the field of Bible-study believe that Bibliodrama is part of the answer.
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