Ten Points For Reading Scripture

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

[quote name='tinytherese' timestamp='1341601286' post='2452902']
Leviticus isn't easy to get into.
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Leviticus is my favorite book. The key for me is thinking deeply and often researching anthropological lay WHY God is setting the requirements and limits he does. Not just what. In many was Leviticus is like the Cannon Law for the Hebrew people. We must seek to understand the pastoral nature and the whys of both in order protect ourselves from becoming like the Pharasees.

[BarbTherese]

I read the Bible from cover to cover before my First Communion (our family Bible was left to me after my parents' death). I do remember some books being a hard labour of reading defeating any understanding whatsoever on my part, but I did persevere and read every word. Being of stubborn mind, it was what I set out to do and come hell or high water!
Somehow I understood it overall as a people being chosen and prepared by God and through constant unfaithfulness of His People, punished, repented, forgiven (and there are also some funny stories in the OT!), then in the New Testament - what they were being prepared for (life and death, resurrection of Jesus) and then what happened afterwards and this seemed even more mysterious to me than earlier reading. It was not until my twenties I think it must have been that I fell in love with the Acts of The Apostles onwards and with that a love of our theology. There is nothing further to be revealed.

In a certain remote sense, we are still 'writing' the 'new testament' but now quite historically as well as further understandings and insights into Scripture, since God has revealed all in Scripture. The Acts of The Apostles onwards are insights and understandings of Scripture - i.e. theology, as well as stories of the early foundations of The Church.

Revelations literally scared the absolute wits out of me until I read a book by Father Michael Fallon in my forties "The Apocalypse. A revelation that history is Graced" : [url="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Apocalypse.html?id=yrkOSQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y"]http://books.google....AAJ&redir_esc=y[/url] This book was of immense value in my previous suburb where cult type religions were preaching that the return of Jesus was now immanent with fundamentalist type interpretations reThe Book of Revelations and influencing young people especially and with great fear - fear of God, fear of punishment, with Jesus as a fierce and fearful judge. I have had occasion to lend it out once in the suburb in which I am now living and to a woman who was being visited by a cult type religion and with the type of message that seems to go with modern day cult thinking.

Another excellent book and the first I ever read as a commentary on Scripture is Thomas Merton's "On Opening The Bible" [url="http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Bible-Thomas-Merton/dp/0814604080"]http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/0814604080[/url] (this was written long before Thomas Merton developed questionable thoughts and concepts and the book's history is here [url="http://www.deaconsil.com/catalog/product1281.html"]http://www.deaconsil...roduct1281.html[/url] I came across it in a dusty corner of our dusty and rather disorganized Catholic Lending Library probably in my mid teens. Merton had been an advisor to VaticanII) Funny story there. I had borrrowed a few books and forgotten to return one. Father rings up one day and asks me to return the book or he would have to (jokingly) 'cut off my hands'. "Oh Father, I have a statue of Jesus with no hands" (which I did and another story entirely). "Ahhhh" says Father "So He has been stealing books too, has He?"

A much more difficult read, but worth it is "The Men and Message of The Old Testament": [url="http://www.amazon.com/The-Men-Message-Old-Testament/dp/0814603483"]http://www.amazon.co...t/dp/0814603483[/url]

Father Michael Fallon is a Missionary of The Sacred Heart and a South Australian scipture scholar of some renown. He has written a commentary on the four Gospels and on a few other books of The Bible. He has put out CD's and there are texts of lectures and addresses, homilies etc. on his new website. [url="http://www.mbfallon.com"]www.mbfallon.com[/url]
I did have all four of his commentaries on The Gospels, made the mistake of lending them out without recording to whom, and two were never returned before I shifted residence almost three years ago now and Catholic books can be quite expensive. Father Michael's books (the ones I have read) are very easy to understand.
E&OE

Edited July 15, 2012 by BarbaraTherese