DESCRIPTION

For most pastors and church members the fields of biblical studies and pastoral practice belong to different worlds. Biblical studies in the West is dominated by technical inquiry into the origins, authorship, and sociological background of the text, while pastoral studies focuses on the concerns of pastoral counseling and the healing of persons and communities. The Bible and pastoral practice are often asking the same questions but too often not talking to each other about them.

An experienced participant in both of these areas, Gordon Oliver asks open, imaginative questions out of genuine curiosity: What is a Bible anyway? Who owns the Bible? How does it witness to Jesus Christ? Can Jesus and pastoral practice really go together? Oliver retrieves the Bible from being something that divides believers and instead builds a bridge between the academy and the local congregation, a bridge connecting Christians who speak different faith languages.

This concise, critical, constructive book follows the recently published volume The Bible in Pastoral Practice, edited by Paul Ballard and Stephen Holmes, and includes a foreword by Derek Tidball of the London School of Theology. Creatively examining the dynamic relation between the Bible and contemporary pastoral practice, Oliver’s Holy Bible, Human Bible opens up new possibilities for interpreting the Bible as practical theology.