Reading is Changing . . . 

As it has for millennia, the nature of reading—a movement of mind, body, and spirit—continues to change in our contemporary world. Reading for Faith and Learning brings together twenty leading, contemporary voices to discuss the significance of reading as a religious and scholarly practice.

Churches and universities would die without reading, so the rapid changes that are affecting the quality and quantity of reading, books, and libraries is a source of concern or perhaps crisis in both Christianity and theological education.  

Readers of this groundbreaking volume will gain deeper appreciation for what it is to “read Scripture” and will gain historical insights that help us to read better (and to think, write, teach, and preach better) and to discern how to respond to the disruption of printed media in our digital culture.  

From depictions of reading in the Hebrew Bible thousands of years ago to machine-reading of thousands of theological books in online libraries, the twenty contributors to this volume explore different facets of reading and its enduring and evolving importance for understanding and relating to God and our world. 

Read the introduction here. 

John Arvid Aho 

Jack Ammerman

Richard Manly Adams Jr.

Carisse Mickey-Berryhill

Craig Churchill

Donald G. Davis Jr. 

E. Brooks Holifield

Richard T. Hughes

Tracy Powell Iwaskow 

Joel M. LeMon

Thomas G. Long

Stephen L. McKenzie

Carol A. Newsom

Kathy Pulley

Carson E. Reed

Armin Siedlecki

David R. Stewart

Brent A. Strawn

John Witte Jr. 

Richard A. Wright

Glossary of Abbreviations 

Introduction 

Reading the Bible

Scenes of Reading | Carol A. Newsom 

Reading Josiah Reading Deuteronomy | Brent A. Strawn 

Jezebel | Steven L. McKenzie 

Reading the Book of Ruth as a Comedy of Knowledge | Carisse Mickey Berryhill 

Rereading a Difficult Text | Violence against Children and Girls in the Reception History of Psalm 137 | Joel M. LeMon 

The Books That Are Biblical by Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt | Armin Seidlecki 

Reading in Community 

Learning the Word in Geneva | John Calvin the Catechist | John Witte, Jr. 

Theologians, Books, and Markets | E. Brooks Holifield 

From Beyond God the Father to Finding Their Voices | Swatches of Influential Books of the Changing Roles of Women in Churches of Christ | Kathy Pulley 

Aren't We Just Like Those Pharisees? | Identification with Character in Biblical Preaching | Thomas G. Long 

The Bible Goes to Church | Performative Reading of Scripture and Communal Identity Formation | Carson E. Reed 

The Richest Classroom Experience of my Career | How We Read for Faith and Learning | Richard T. Hughes 

On the Cultivation of Love through Reading | On the Cultivation of Love through Reading | Tracy Powell Iwaskow 

Reading and the Library 

The Creation, Care, and Preservation of Books in the Roman Empire | The Evidence from Galen's De indolentia | Richard A. Wright 

"When the time comes to make use of them, they don't know how to handle them" | Lucian's "Ignorant Book Collector" and the Theological Librarian | Richard Manley Adams, Jr.

The Task of the Christian Librarian | An Ancient Perspective | Donald G Davis, Jr. and Jon Arvid Aho 

Reading in the Twenty-First Century; Reading at Scale | Jack Ammerman 

"The New Curiosity Shop" | A Reflection on Theological Libraries as Contributors to Vocational Formation | David R. Stewart 

Selected Bibliography of the Writings of M. Patrick Graham | Craig Churchill 

Index 

ISBN: 9780891124290

Pages: 330

Dimensions (inches): 9 x 6

Weight (pounds):