February 21, 2016 - Animate Bible / Canon: Mining for the Word - Eric Elnes

First of all I'll express my trepidation about writing a blog post on this first Animate Bible session.  The trepidation will disappear next week when Linda lead us in Phyllis Tickle's DVD presentation of History: Parchment to Pixel.  However, organizing and leading this session my unique perspective may not be shared by most and enthusiasms I express may be held as being based in non-objective bias.

That being said, Eric Elnes' presentation of Canon: Mining for the Word felt like both an entertaining and instructive session.  This first Animate Bible session was about how 66 cultural history lessons, collections of poems, family genograms, allegorical stories, and community letters were all gathered from sources that stretch across time and place and became the Bible.  Canonization is far messier, subjective, and ongoing than might initially be imagined.

The methodology used to extract sacred “gold” from the many, many streams of writing and thought that make up the history of our faith was explored.  The presentation also suggested that the shifting and refining might not be complete, even though the canon itself is closed. It highlighted some work we could do to uncover the richness of the Bible.

Animate Bible  is designed open conversations; to help adults to have an engaging, nuanced, hopeful, and positive relationship with the sacred texts of the Bible: introduce them to perspectives from Christian thought leaders on topics such as the canon, history, testaments, gospels, genre, interpretation, and grace;  and encourage on-going conversations. 

After the DVD presentation about twenty of us broke into three small groups to share thoughts on what was presented and to act a bit on what we had learned.

For example, one group imagined themselves in a scenario where they were assembling the canon for the first time.  They discussed the criteria and process they would recommend and reflected on how it might change their views on divine inspiration to be involved in that project.

The second group was given a different hypothetical scenario where some lost letters of Paul's were found at an archaeological dig and their group was asked whether they would recommend opening up the canon to include them.  In the interest of making the material available to everyone, most in the group favored opening up the canon in this hypothetical.

The last group shared their thoughts and responses to today's Lessons and Gospel .

This is the final of the Animate series that Creator has tackled.  From what I experienced this was another session that was successful kick off of the Animate series.

Creator Photo by Ron Houser