What is particular and peculiar about the Bible in Anglicanism? What do Anglican bring to their reading, study, and interpretation of the Bible? How does the Bible affect the way Anglicans live out their faith through worship, study, and many forms of ministry and service? In answering these questions this course studies how the Bible has impacted Anglicanism (reception history) as well as how the Bible has been shaped by Anglicans from the English Reformation to the present day (history of interpretation). It presupposes a dialogue between community and text occurring in all scriptural communities of faith. The course proceeds historically, tracing the development the Bible’s roles in Anglicanism with a special focus on concerns central to its identity and mission. Examining ways in which the Bible has influenced and shaped worship, music, polity, evangelism, and theology helps refine and sharpen a focus on the particular community-text dialogue within Anglicanism
Instructor: Donn Morgan is Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Always a student and teacher of the Bible, he also held administrative positions at CDSP (academic dean, president). He has been deeply involved in theological education in The Episcopal Church and the Graduate Theological Union, as well as teaching in Asia and England. His books include Fighting with the Bible, Manifesto for Learning, Talking with the Bible and The Oxford Handbook of the Writings of the Hebrew Bible (editor).