Reading Scripture with the Saints

The book you are holding is a small museum. On its pages hang portraits of Christianity's "masters of the sacred page": Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine of Hippo, Benedict of Nursia, Maximus Confessor, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Charles Wesley. Other, surprising figures also appear: Shakespeare, Washington, and Lincoln. How did these great thinkers interpret Scripture? What might their diverse approaches teach today's readers of the Old and New Testaments? What's missing in contemporary biblical interpretation that an awareness of the history of exegesis might complete? Join Clifton Black as he traverses the Bible, church history, systematic theology, Elizabethan drama, and American politics: retrieving premodern insights for a postmodern world, Reading Scripture with the Saints. "I cherish this book. For those who do not read Scripture, I know of no more important medicine for today's ills than reading it and no better book than this one for lessons in how to read. As for those who do read Scripture, the odds are that only very very few read it well. The binaries that define modern civilization tend to indwell our religions, as well, and thereby to indwell our readings. I know of no better medicine for poor reading than the instructions Clifton Black has gleaned from the saints and doctors of the church and winnowed through his own wise, capacious, and corrective hermeneutic." --Peter Ochs, Edgar Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA "Clifton Black's career as a New Testament scholar has ever been marked by his restlessness to understand also how the Bible changes its readers. What he says of Augustine's biblical exegesis is true of his own book as well: Reading Scripture with the Saints can lead us to transformative insights that are 'wiser and deeper than much of our current fare.' Highly recommended!" --John L. Thompson, Professor of Historical Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA "In this remarkable volume, Clifton Black teaches us humility. Few readers of the Bible, especially among us Protestants, attend to the wisdom of our ancestors who also read and loved Scripture. We tend to value the new over the old. These studies show us the value of looking back and listening to voices that range from Augustine to Shakespeare, and from Luther to Lincoln." --Greg Carey, Professor of New Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary, Lancaster, PA C. Clifton Black an ordained elder of The United Methodist Church, is the Otto A. Piper Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His other books include Anatomy of the New Testament (7th ed., 2013), The Rhetoric of the Gospel (2nd ed., 2013), The Disciples According to Mark (2nd ed., 2012), and Mark (Abingdon Commentaries, 2011).