by Thomas Welbers

The original Banquet of the Word derives from Bible study notes written in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and represents my parish and biblical study experience at that time. It was subsequently published by Resource Publications in 1985. After the small initial press run was sold out in about six months, they declined to reprint it, and turned all rights back to me. During its brief time in print, the Banquet of the Word did not receive much publicity, apart from a couple of reasonably favorable reviews.

When I first wrote this material, which was printed in parish bulletins at Our Lady of Lourdes in Northridge, California, liturgical Bible study was very much a novelty, and there was little else available that was even the least bit similar. By the time it was published in book form, considerable competition was developing. And now there are many commentaries available on the liturgical readings.

What is here has not been revised, and in some respects it may be a bit out of date. However, I still receive reports that people find it helpful. I hope you do.

Rev. Thomas Welbers

Our Lady of the Assumption Church

435 Berkeley Avenue

Claremont, CA 91711

(909) 626-3596

twelbers@olaclaremont.org

Copyright © 1985, 1999 Thomas Welbers. All rights reserved.

You have my permission to make use of this material in any way you find helpful individually or in a small group. Any further reproduction or distribution however, in print or electronic media, requires my explicit permission in writing. And if you in any way make money off of my work, neither God nor I will look kindly on what you do. I don’t know if there are any lawyers in heaven, but I know a few good ones here on earth.

Presiders, homilists, lectors, and liturgy planners have plenty of books and periodicals aimed at them to provide commentary on the Sunday liturgical readings. They don’t need another one.

But the average Catholic Christian who hears the Church’s call to study, pray, and live the Scriptures within the framework of the Sunday liturgy finds few guides. Most Bible study aids treat one book at a time or pursue particular themes throughout the Bible text.

This book was conceived from a conviction that Bible Study for Catholics most properly takes place in resonance with the rhythm of the celebration and life of the Church. It was born out of nearly ten years’ experience with just such Bible study groups at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Northridge, Holy Name of Jesus Church in Los Angeles, and the Catholic Newman Center in Long Beach. I gratefully dedicate this book to the members of those communities who helped bring it about.

Thomas Welbers

Long Beach, California

September 30, 1985

Memorial of St. Jerome

The Bible is at home in the liturgy.

The Bible was born when God’s people perceived his active presence among them, and gathered together to acknowledge and celebrate his saving work in them.

Most books of the Bible came from oral traditions — stories, teachings, laws, and songs that were told and sung when God’s people gathered for worship. They were written down so they could be kept alive through continued proclamation in the liturgical assembly. This is true for both the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) and for the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). Throughout Jewish-Christian history, God’s word in Scripture has most deeply touched life in the celebration of liturgy.

Before Jesus, in the times when the Jewish Scriptures were being formed, people gathered to hear the law, to recall the heroes and events of the past, to listen to the words of the prophets, and to sing psalms. Through this living word they were put in touch with their origins and identity. God’s saving work of the past was recalled in a way that made it alive in the present. Putting these words down in writing was something secondary; the written word existed principally to serve and preserve the living, spoken word.

In Jewish traditions, prayer, especially liturgical prayer, arose from this living recollection of God’s saving events for his people in their history. In remembering past events, especially at mealtime, expressions of praise for who God is and thanks for what he had done unfolded into petitions that God would accomplish now for his people what he did for them in the past. This particular way of praying, called the berakah or blessing, was the ancestor of the Christian eucharistic prayer, the heart of the Mass.

After Jesus, the events of his life and his teachings continued to be told over and over when his followers gathered to worship and to celebrate the breaking of the bread. These stories came from the faith of the earliest Christians — the apostles and disciples — and were preached and carefully preserved and collected in order to nourish the faith of Christians as they sought to live the kingdom of God announced by Christ. The four Gospels were written between forty and seventy years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and were made possible because the early Christian communities continued to remember Jesus whenever they gathered in his name.

Even the letters of the Christian Scriptures, especially those of Paul, were destined to be read in liturgical assemblies. Paul addressed the problems of the early Christian churches in the light of the faith-teaching he had already given them. Since these letters were public documents addressed to the whole community, it was only natural that they be shared publicly in the liturgical assembly. The fact that many (though by no means all) of Paul’s letters to churches were saved and eventually found their way into the recognized body of Scriptures shows that they were shared from church to church and kept alive through repeated proclamation in the liturgical assembly.

Having been born of the living faith of God’s people, the Scriptures have continued to nourish that faith by putting Christians of all times and places in touch with their origins and heritage. Many early Christian writers, as well as the Second Vatican Council, referred to two tables in the liturgical celebration — the table of the word and the table of the eucharist (see the Constitution on Divine Revelation, 21). Both were seen as equally important sources of nourishment for God’s faithful people. The bread of the word is presented in the proclamation of Scripture and broken open in the homily to feed the members of the assembly just as the bread of the eucharist is brought and placed on the altar table, blessed in the eucharistic prayer, broken, and shared in communion.

We of the late twentieth century need to remember that prior to the sixteenth century when the printing and distribution of books made near-universal literacy possible, the only contact with Scripture that most people could have was in public proclamation, and that usually meant liturgical proclamation. Private reading, as well as private interpretation, of the Bible was simply an impossibility for at least three-fourths of our Christian history. In its origin and its history the Bible has consistently been a public book, nourishing the shared and living faith of a Christian people, not just of individual Christians.

Throughout this Banquet of the Word we will consistently use the terms "Jewish (or Hebrew) Scriptures" and "Christian Scriptures" in place of "Old Testament" and "New Testament." As Christians, we need to recover an awareness that the Jewish tradition is not "old" in the sense of antiquated or obsolete, but is truly the foundation of our faith. The event of Jesus’ coming did not destroy or invalidate God’s original promise and saving presence to the Jews but fulfilled it and made it universal for all times and places. The only Bible that Jesus and the first generations of Christians knew was the Jewish collection of scriptural books. Inspired apostolic writings, while cherished and carefully preserved in their own day, were gathered together in collections recognized as Scripture by all Christian churches only in second and third centuries.

The word "Lectionary" refers primarily to the selection and arrangement of the Scripture readings for the liturgy rather than the book from which the Scripture is proclaimed. A Bible itself, preferably a large and dignified one, would be the most appropriate book from which to proclaim the liturgical readings at Mass.

The present Lectionary is one of the glories of the liturgical reform following the Second Vatican Council. Before Vatican II, only a few passages from the Bible were read over and over again year after year. The Council directed that the readings be so arranged that the "treasures of the Bible be opened more lavishly" in the liturgy (see the Constitution on the Liturgy, 51). Both biblical and liturgical scholars worked together to draw up a reformed Lectionary; it was completed in 1970. Several principles guided their work:

First, to assure that a substantial portion of the Bible would actually be read, a three-year cycle was adopted. Trying to cover the whole Bible, or even just the important parts, in one year would have meant excessively long readings or the omission of many significant sections.

Second, for Christians the Gospels stand at the heart of the Bible, therefore they are also at the heart of liturgical proclamation. The three-year cycle is based on the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke — with John reserved for special times.

Third, if the Gospel passage is the climax of the readings, two additional readings are called for, the first usually from the Jewish Scriptures and the second from the non-Gospel Christian Scriptures.

Fourth, the first reading from the Jewish Scriptures should have some relationship to the Gospel. This enables Catholic Christians to hear and study these readings in the light of our belief that God’s revelation to his chosen people, the Jews, finds its fulfillment in Christ.

Fifth, the second reading, is to be a semi-continuous reading from the letters of the Christian Scriptures. Thus one week’s selection would begin more or less where the previous week’s left off.

Thus the Lectionary provides an ideal framework for Bible study. It both assures basic coverage of the entire Bible over the course of three years and it keeps study of the Bible in tune with the rhythm of the Church’s life and the liturgical year.

The liturgical year establishes the rhythm of the Christian life. The high points of the year are the two major seasons, Lent-Easter being the most important, and Advent-Christmas being secondary. Each of these seasons is made up of a period of preparation and a season which prolongs the celebration of the feast itself. The remainder of the year is called "Ordinary Time" in many official Church documents, but the Lectionary more aptly calls it the "Season of the Year."

During the major seasons, the readings are chosen to shed light on the mystery that is being prepared for or celebrated. Often the selection of these passages goes back into the usage of the early Church, and so they reflect the insights of many centuries of faith. The Gospel of John, because of its concentration on the development of faith and its theological reflections on the divinity of Jesus as manifested in his death and resurrection, has traditionally been given pride of place in these seasons.

The Season of the Year begins after the Advent-Christmas season, is interrupted for the Lent-Easter season, and resumes after Pentecost. The Gospel narrative proper to each year of the three-year cycle begins after Christmas season with the events following the baptism of Jesus, and continues throughout the year with the life and teachings of Jesus as found in that Gospel.

A number of feasts supplant the Sunday celebration, some regularly and others only when Sunday falls on a particular date. The rules for this are rather complex, and a good calendar will tell you what is celebrated when, so there is no need for us to go into detail. It is enough to note that only feasts of major significance are allowed to displace the regular Sunday cycle. We should try to see these feasts as enhancing rather than interrupting the rhythm of the year.

The word of God in the Bible continues to nourish our faith. In the years of reform and renewal following Vatican II, Catholics have begun to rediscover the Bible’s significance in understanding and living their faith. Bible study has recently become an important part of Catholic life, both for individuals and for parishes. At the same time, the major Protestant churches are experiencing a renewal of liturgical life, especially in more frequent and wholehearted celebration of the eucharist. Now Catholics and Protestants are both gaining a new appreciation of the relationship between the scriptural word and the liturgy.

Unfortunately, this renewed interest in Bible study among Catholics has often not taken into account the close relationship of the liturgy and the Bible. Both our liturgical celebrations and our Christian lives are the poorer for it.

The liturgy provides the natural connecting link between the Bible and Christian life. What we celebrate in the liturgy is intended to unfold in our life of faith day by day. Not only homilists and lectors need to study the Sunday Scripture readings in preparation for Mass; it is an important element of everyone’s participation. In order to celebrate well, we must prepare well to hear and respond to the Scripture to be proclaimed. If we do not read and study and pray over the Sunday Scriptures during the week in preparation for the Mass, we rob the proclamation of its power and starve our faith of its rightful nourishment.

Proclamation speaks primarily to the heart, not the head — heart as the center of our being rather than just an emotion. It makes the word of God a living and active reality within the liturgical assembly. The liturgy of the word challenges and stimulates us to renew and deepen our commitment to new life in Christ. Proclamation seeks a response, a "yes" that is not merely spoken but lived in a new way. The word of God holds up a mirror in which we see not only ourselves, but ourselves in God’s presence. And God’s presence in his word is the standard by which we measure ourselves and change our hearts to live in his presence. The appropriate response to proclamation is discipleship.

Comprehension and retention are not primary values in proclamation as they are in Bible study or reading. The passage to be proclaimed must already have been read and studied, it must already be present in mind and heart, for its proclamation to be effective. The word in the liturgical celebration calls forth an echo in the life of the assembly; it stimulates the growth of what must already be present. Some will argue in favor of following the text in a missal or a missalette along with the lector or deacon because following the printed word promotes greater retention and understanding. Perhaps so, but the it also locks each person in a purely personal and individual relationship with the printed word, and reduces the act of proclamation itself to secondary importance. In the liturgy, the focus of attention is on the living word proclaimed by the person who at this moment is ministering to the whole assembly in Christ’s name. The assembly is unified in its attentiveness to the word, and is empowered as well to respond as one body.

It should be obvious that careful preparation — reading, study, and prayer — must precede both the proclamation and the hearing of the proclaimed word, or else the Scripture will lose its own proper power. We have so many weak celebrations of liturgy not because the word itself has failed but because we have lost faith in its potency and do nothing to enable it to shine forth.

We often think of liturgical ministry as something done "by someone up there" at the chair or ambo or altar. The primary liturgical ministry — the one on which all other ministries depend — is that of the assembly. All who gather for worship have a responsibility to minister in faith to one another. Attentiveness and wholehearted response is contagious within the assembly. You manifest your faith in the power of the word by your attentiveness to it, and you thereby support the faith of those around you.

Effective presiding by the priest and effective proclamation by the lector depends in large measure on how well the congregation ministers to them by their attention and responsiveness. A lector who must face a crowd of indifferent faces every Sunday morning soon loses much of the incentive to proclaim well and almost cannot help but succumb to routine performance. A congregation prepared by study and prayer to receive God’s word can hardly fail to bring forth the best in their ministers.

The priest’s liturgical role of presiding reflects the role of the priest as presider in the life of the community. Often the liturgical ministry of presider is weakened by failure to bring this reality into preparation for liturgy. Although special times must be set aside for collecting and composing the homily and other parts of the liturgy, this work is nourished by day-by-day interaction with the community.

The homily is not the fruit of isolated research and study, but comes properly from immersion in the Scriptures in union with members of the community. The homily is not an explanation of the proclaimed word, it is an unfolding of the power of the word in one’s own life and in the life of the community. It is not a teaching, but a call to bring the word to life. Ideally, the homily should develop within the context of the presider’s involvement in the total liturgy planning process, which begins with studying the Sunday Scriptures with the liturgy committee. At very least, homilists should be part of Bible study groups — not necessarily the leaders —composed of people of the parish, in which they can expand their own horizons and can derive a clearer sense of their needs and the community’s needs in relation to the word.

Members of the liturgy committee should begin their preparation for the Sunday liturgy by immersing themselves in the assigned Scripture texts. Those who compose the prayer of the faithful or are responsible for the music in the liturgy need to become familiar with the content of the Sunday readings so it can illuminate their specific concerns: how can this liturgical assembly present its needs in prayer or respond in song in the light of the word they have just heard?

Lectors need to study not only the particular passages they will proclaim, but the other readings as well, including the Gospel, in order to grasp the fullness of the message. Otherwise they cannot proclaim the word as a living reality within them, but only as words coming from a printed page.

Music ministers have the difficult task of putting the "queen of the arts" to the service of the community’s worship. They have devoted their lives and their hearts to acquiring skill and competence in an art which they are now required to place in a position of servant. The servanthood of ministry is never easy, and it can be accomplished only in union with Christ the Servant.

The role proper to liturgical music ministers requires more than just reading over the Sunday Scriptures to get an idea of the theme in order to pick appropriate songs. They need to be first of all actively participating members of the Christian community that draws nourishment from the proclaimed word. Music that is truly the servant of the Church’s worship grows out of the community’s struggle to listen to the word of God as it speaks to all aspects of life. At very least, music ministers need to be in communication with other liturgical ministers and join with them in reflecting on the Sunday readings.

Ministers to the sick bring not only the eucharist but also the word of God to the sick and shut-ins in their care. Their ministry is primarily to keep alive the bonds of unity between the rest of the community and the person who has been isolated by sickness. Realizing that they embody the life and activity of the parish for the sick person, ministers to the sick should be prepared to share reflections on the Sunday readings as they bring communion from the Sunday eucharist.

The Christian Initiation of Adults envisions a process that introduces the catechumens to the rhythm of the Church’s life through the Sunday liturgical proclamation of Scripture. Their dismissal after the liturgy of the word is not so much a deprivation of the remainder of the community’s liturgy as a call to their own liturgy which continues immersion in the proclaimed word of God in a way that nourishes their journey.

The Sunday Scriptures also have a central place in the classroom. If the goal of Catholic schools and religious education programs is to form children and adults in the art of Christian living in the world, the liturgical proclamation of God’s word provides the fundamental source for this formation just as the liturgical year establishes the environment in which it takes place.

The Lectionary and the liturgical year provide a framework for Bible study, not a straightjacket. There are many creative possibilities within this framework, especially for those who already have some familiarity with the Bible and the liturgical year.

The liturgical selections should never be studied alone in complete isolation from the rest of the Bible. It is always important to pay attention to the context, parallels, and cross-references, as well as those sections that may have been omitted from any given reading.

The Gospel is the last of the three Scripture readings, and therefore the climax of the liturgical proclamation of the word. In study and preparation, however, the Gospel should always be considered first because its message sets the theme of the liturgy of the word, and of the whole celebration.

The first reading is from the Jewish Scriptures (except during Easter season) and it nearly always helps us to understand the journey in faith of the people God first prepared to receive and share the Good News. Usually, the particular passage is chosen to shed light on the Gospel reading, but it often relates thematically to other passages in the Jewish Scriptures which can be studied with profit and which in turn show the development of thought and faith before Jesus.

The responsorial psalm is not really a part of the Scripture proclamation, but makes use of the words of Scripture to embody the assembly’s response to the first reading. In liturgical Bible study, however, this psalm together with its response-verse can serve as the opening or closing prayer to the session.

The second reading is from a letter in the Christian Scriptures and gives us a glimpse of the way the Gospel event was appropriated and lived by the disciples and the earliest Christians. Although not chosen specifically to correspond with the Gospel passage of any Sunday, this reading often can be found to say more to the thematic content of the Gospel than is usually supposed. The concrete message of the Gospel always benefits from being put in a broader context, and we can hear it better with ears that are sharpened by the experience and advice of the apostolic letter writers.

Within the framework of liturgical Bible study it is still possible and at times desirable to study a single book at a time. Choose a book that is being proclaimed during the present liturgical cycle or season, and study it with reference to the season and the liturgical proclamation. This may be especially appropriate after having already gone through the three-year cycle, and having acquired a good familiarity with the Bible as a whole and the rhythm of the Church’s year.

All Bible study begins with reading the Scripture passage and reflecting on it. There is no substitute for reading it aloud — even privately. The Bible came from oral traditions and was written down specifically to be read aloud. The printed word serves the spoken word, and is fulfilled in speaking and hearing. Reading aloud involves the body and activates the senses; it slows us down to pay closer attention to what we are reading. It allows us to play with the meaning, to discover different ways of emphasizing words to bring out nuances of meaning that we would miss otherwise. Hearing our own voice sharpens our senses to listen to others’ voices in reading.

When we approach Scripture, it is important to realize that we come in contact with our whole heritage as a Christian people. First of all, we are a people, not a group of isolated individuals, and we cannot relate to God outside of our identity as a people, as his Church. Second, we are a people with a past, and we cannot relate to God apart from that past. God revealed himself through the events of our ancestors’ history, and in touching them we are touching him. We should not be so concerned with trying to hear God speaking directly to us through the Scripture, but should learn to appreciate our heritage of faith as mediating his presence here and now.

Let the passage you are studying lead you. Ask yourself questions about it, and try to answer them by using a good Bible dictionary and/or a commentary. Explore related passages with the help of a concordance.

In discussing the Bible, try to define three levels of meaning. First, come to grips with the meaning in itself. What did the Biblical author intend to say? What is the historical context? What actually happened and what did it mean to the people of that time? Then share what the passage means to you. How can the ancient experience illuminate your life here and now? What in your own experience echoes the patterns you discovered in the Biblical passage? Finally, explore what this passage can say to us as Church. We have to challenge ourselves to get beyond the purely personal and see ourselves as part of the community. How does this Bible passage enrich our Christian living and call forth a deeper commitment to the kingdom of God here and now? The questions at the end of each section in this book are designed to help move from through these layers of meaning.

An exercise called "clustering" can be quite helpful in group Bible study to get sharing or discussion started. After reading the passage aloud, reflect on it for a few minutes in silence. Each person should have a pencil and a blank sheet of paper, and begin to write down words that come to mind. These may be key words from the text itself or words that the reading suggests, such as feelings or related thoughts. It is important that these words not be put down in a column or outline fashion, but be scattered more or less at random around the page. After the words stop coming to mind, draw a heavy circle around whatever word seems key or most important. Then spend a few moments connecting the words with circles and arrows in whatever relationships they seem to suggest.

After about five minutes of this activity, enough people begin to develop insights and confidence to begin sharing. It also focuses discussion on the content of the reading and helps prevent wandering into concerns not pertinent to the reading.

The success of this exercise depends upon involvement of all the senses in the act of writing on paper as well as a shift into a global, non-linear mode of thinking (sometimes called "right brain") encouraged by the random clustering of words, as opposed to the logical ordering of concepts. "Clustering" may seem somewhat simplistic and superficial, but it does work in practice. Do not expect it, however, to be what it is not. It is not a Bible study method as such; it is only a technique to encourage the type of thinking that leads to sharing within a group. (For more on this "right brain shift" and "clustering", I recommend Gabriele Lusser Rico, Writing the Natural Way, J.P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1983.)

Prayer is always a response to God who has taken the initiative to speak to us first. Reading, reflection, and study of the Scriptures should never be far from praying the Scriptures. Personal prayer outside the liturgy nourishes prayer within the liturgy, and liturgical prayer establishes the pattern for the prayer of the rest of the week. In liturgy, we listen and we respond. In life, we make that response active and concrete. In studying and praying the scriptural word, we say "yes" to that word in our private moments. In celebration, our personal "yes" becomes one with the Church’s and Christ’s "yes."

Any work requires its own tools, and Bible study is no exception. There are many types of tools, mostly books, that will prove helpful and even essential to both individuals and groups engaged in studying the Bible. Most of the fears and questions that intimidate beginners can be addressed by knowing and making use of some of the resources available. Here are various categories of tools that you should consider, both for individual and for group study. The prices given reflect the retail cost at the time of this writing (summer 1985) as well as I could determine it. They are given more for purposes of comparison than as an assurance of what you will pay.

The first question asked by most who want to study the Sunday readings is, "How do I find out what they are?" This is really two questions: "Which Sunday (or feast) are we preparing to celebrate?" and "What are the Scripture readings proper to that celebration?"

The answer to the first can come as simply as finding a good Catholic calendar — the kind that are sold or given away in most churches around Christmastime. Not all calendars, however, are clear on which year of the three-year cycle it is, so here is a table that will last you well into the millennium:

Don’t forget that the liturgical year begins with the First Sunday of Advent, so, for example, Year A 2000 actually begins November 28, 1999.

I know that suggesting an ordinary religious calendar seems a little too obvious, but usually the questions with the obvious answers are the ones that block us at the very beginning of a venture.

A beginning student of the Bible has to face a bewildering variety of versions and decide which one to buy. There are three things to look for: (1) Is it a faithful translation? (2) Is it in contemporary readable English? (3) Does it have explanatory introductions and notes? Out of many good versions and editions, three can be especially recommended for our purposes.

The New American Bible (NAB) is the official Catholic translation in the United States and is the one most commonly used in parish Sunday liturgies. The NAB is recommended as a first choice mainly because it is what you will usually hear in church. Most scholars regard it to be a faithful and accurate translation of the original texts. The English is fairly idiomatic, but sometimes a bit clumsy and inelegant for reading aloud. The introductory material and notes are fairly good. The NAB is available from several publishers, but perhaps the least expensive editions with the very clear type are the "St. Joseph" editions from the Catholic Book Publishing Company. Prices begin about $6.95 for a paperback edition, but I would recommend the larger hardbound student’s edition for about $12.00.

The Jerusalem Bible (JB), published by Doubleday, is based on a very famous French translation with excellent and extensive commentaries, notes, and cross references. The complete hardbound edition runs $23.95. Avoid the cheaper "Reader’s Edition" which gives only the text and omits the helpful notes.

The Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, published by Oxford University Press, uses the highly regarded Revised Standard Version (RSV) and also gives a variety of excellent study helps. It runs $24.95.

For more casual reading only, the Good News Bible or Today’s English Version (TEV), published in a Catholic edition with the Deuterocanonical books (Apocrypha) is excellent, and a good buy as well. Available by mail order from the American Bible Society (P.O. Box 5601, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163) for $3.50 soft cover or $4.00 hardbound. It is also sold in bookstores, but is much more expensive. This is a good Bible to keep by your bedside or in the office or wherever you might find yourself with some reading time.

Not particularly recommended are two Protestant versions popular among conservative evangelicals, the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the New International Version (NIV). They are not bad, but the others we have recommended are better for our purposes.

Definitely not recommended are the King James (KJV) and the Douay versions and the so-called Living Bible (also called The Way). The King James and Douay are four hundred years old and the language of that time does not speak well today, even though many people still like its "churchiness." If you are reading for understanding rather than just musty feelings, avoid these. The Living Bible is a recent work (1971) but it is a paraphrase, not a translation. In other words, the author sought to retell the Bible text in other words. Usually these "other words" reflect a fundamentalist Protestant interpretation that even most mainline Protestants do not agree with. It also comes in an "approved" Catholic edition, but mere "approval" does not remove its flaws! The Living Bible may be useful as a second or third Bible version in order to get the flavor of a certain kind of interpretation, but it should not be used as the basic text for serious Bible study.

These are books about the Bible, usually addressed to beginners or those who need to return to the basics — as we all do from time to time. They are designed to take you by the hand and lead you through the background territory you need in order to know to approach the Bible with some degree of familiarity, understanding, and confidence. They are important both for individuals and groups because they usually answer the questions that make first-timers feel awkward and old-timers impatient. Out of many good ones available, I would recommend three:

(1) Robert R. Hann, The Bible: an Owner’s Manual, Paulist Press, 1983, $5.95. This book assumes that you don’t know anything about the Bible, and therefore jumps right into the questions you were afraid to ask. This is a book you should devour from cover to cover but hide from your friends (or else mail it to them anonymously). You don’t want them to know you’re that ignorant, but secretly you suspect they have the same questions.

(2) Gerhard Lohfink, The Bible: Now I Get It!, Doubleday, 1979, $7.95. Described as "an entertaining look at the Bible for people who think they know it already," this book picks up where the "Owner’s Manual" leaves off. It is a popular study of what contemporary scholarship says about the various forms of literature that make up the books of the Bible and how to interpret them.

(3) Wilfrid Harrington, O.P., The New Guide to Reading and Studying the Bible, Michael Glazier, 1978, $7.95. Harrington is a distinguished scholar who covers much the same territory as the above two books in a readable but more concise and less entertaining way — not necessarily an advantage.

If you are doing any work with the Bible you cannot live without a concordance. This is an index to all the words (or at least major words) found in the Bible, giving the verses and quotes from the lines in which they are found. You need a concordance find that passage you only half remember that could be somewhere in Matthew — or maybe it was Exodus, or Ephesians. It also can help to search for themes. If you want explore, for example, the "kingdom of God," you can find all the passages that use the word "kingdom," as well as "reign," "rule," and "dominion."

The best buy is the hardcover Concordance to the Holy Bible published by the American Bible Society and sold by them (see address above) for $3.25. It is not exhaustive, but it is a handy size and complete enough to be useful, with 4,700 keywords and 70,000 references. It uses the KJV which in this case is not a disadvantage. Highly recommended.

The next step up is a big one, both in price and weight. Nelson’s Complete Concordance of the New American Bible, 1977, is an exhaustive concordance based on the NAB. If you want to pay $39.95 and lug around a 1274-page book that weighs almost eight pounds, this is the one to buy rather than the other exhaustive concordances, such as Young’s or Strong’s, of similar size and cost.

There are many Bible dictionaries on the market, including tiny pocket books scarcely worthy of the name. A Bible dictionary should be more like a small encyclopedia, treating each word in some depth. Most reviewers seem to agree that the best all-around buy for the average-to-serious Bible student is the popular John L. McKenzie, S.J., Dictionary of the Bible, Macmillan, 1965, $13.95 paperback. It’s a good-sized book, but not overwhelming. The fact that it has been around for twenty years and is still regarded as one of the best testifies to its reliability and accessibility.

A commentary is simply what the name implies — a running commentary that provides background information to help understand the text as you are reading it. Most commentaries also contain articles that treat of various aspects of Scripture study. The best of them are the work of a large number of experts and reflect the findings of recent scholarly research.

One of the most useful and accessible one-volume commentaries to the whole Bible is The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Abingdon, 1971, $22.95. Also recommended, but considerably more expensive, are A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, Nelson, 1969, $34.95, a work of English authorship, and The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice-Hall, 1968, $57.95, a comprehensive and detailed work by American Catholic scholars. Familiarly known as the JBC, you may find it worth the price, but I would suggest you use it in a library before investing. A somewhat simpler and much less inexpensive one-volume commentary on the whole Bible is William Neil, Harper’s Bible Commentary, Harper and Row, 1962, $6.95.

There are also many multi-volume commentaries that treat only one or a few books of the Bible in each volume. They range from the very expensive and somewhat controversial and as yet incomplete Anchor Bible, $15.00 to $25.00 per volume, to the relatively inexpensive Collegeville Bible Commentary Series, published by Liturgical Press at $2.50 each. In between are series published by Michael Glazier, Doubleday Image Books, and many more. The value of these multi-volume sets is that certain numbers may be outstanding, but it is not worth getting a whole set. The cost of even the Collegeville series can quickly mount up to more than the much larger and more comprehensive one-volume commentaries.

A Gospel parallel is perhaps not as essential as a concordance or a good commentary, but it is a handy thing to have, especially for liturgical Bible study. It lines up the Gospels texts in vertical parallel columns so you can see at a glance which Gospel has what and where the similarities and differences are. The Lectionary is arranged so that frequently only one of several parallel texts are read in the liturgy, so it is helpful to be able to compare them.

The least expensive and best is Kurt Aland, Synopsis of the Four Gospels, English Edition, American Bible Society, 1982, $5.95. You have to order it by mail, see address above under "Bibles." Most stores carry Burton H. Throckmorton, Jr., Gospel Parallels: A Synopsis of the First Three Gospels, 1979, $9.95. Both can be recommended. A companion to Throckmorton’s Gospel Parallels, Neal M. Flanagan, O.S.M., Mark, Matthew, Luke: A Guide to the Gospel Parallels, Liturgical Press, 1978, $4.95, sheds light on the why’s and how’s of Gospel parallels.

While we are on the subject of parallels, Fred O. Francis and J. Paul Sampley, Pauline Parallels, Fortress, 1984, $29.95, is as intriguing as it is expensive. It’s a very handy way to discover the ways that the Paul’s thought is related from one letter to another.

The tools we have listed represent just the beginning and a very small part of the resources that are available as your probe more deeply into study of the Bible. Two books that may help the search for more treasures in the Biblical field are Erasmus Hort, The Bible Book: Resources for Reading the New Testament, Crossroad, 1983, $12.95; and Iris V. Cully and Kendig Brubaker Culler, A Guide to Biblical Resources, Morehouse-Barlow, 1981, $4.95. The former is a bit more serious and scholarly; the latter covers the basic territory but also delves into resources for children’s study as well as the Bible in arts and literature.

Exploring the Bible is an image of exploring the Divinity itself: the deeper you probe the more you discover new riches that beckon you. Perhaps that’s why we will always be left less than satisfied in this life . . . and why heaven needs to be eternal.

Copyright © 1985, 1999 Thomas Welbers