Catholic Biblical Traditions

Slip into a pew at a Catholic church almost anywhere in the world on a Sunday morning, and you’ll likely find something missing: the Bible. More than five hundred years after the Bible came off the first printing press, why does the world’s largest biblical religion often not have a printed Bible in the room? And if not, how is it that the life of Catholics is shaped by the Bible?

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. Primary among these encounters are the Mass and events of the life cycle, but Peppard also presents the Catholic Bible through the art of ancient Rome, pilgrimage in modern Mexico, the poetry of medieval mystics, and even contemporary American fiction. Through these curated highlights, the reader will see how the Bible thrives among Catholics, even if its printed text may be missing.

Michael Peppard is Professor of Theology at Fordham University. His scholarship and teaching focus on bringing to light the meanings of the Bible and early Christian materials in their social, political, artistic, and ritual contexts. He is the award-winning author of The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in its Social and Political Context and The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria, as well as numerous articles. He gives frequent commentary on current events at the nexus of religion, politics, and culture for Commonweal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and PBS.