2. We hope that students not only learn the overarching story but

recognize some of the key themes in biblical faith:divine creation, human

fallenness, judgment, covenant,rebirth, responsiveness, discipleship,

salvation, fruitfulness, resurrection, grace, inclusiveness, justice, redemption,

peace, commitment and hope. Our goal is to assist students in seeing these

themes woven through the Bible, and to imagine together with them the ways

in which these same themes help us make sense of our world. The

"truthfulness" of the stories comes to us, in part, when we grasp the ways they

resonate with our own experience of God and our world.

3. We hope to breathe life into the text, or rather, to allow the text's hot,

moist breath to touch students. The Bible is by no means a flat, static, lifeless

book. The people whose stories are told are real people who have had genuine

encounters with God and who, in the midst of their fallibility, are

tremendously devoted to God, people who know God hassaved them and is

saving them.

I suspect our Jewish sisters and brothers often live closer to the text

than we do. As frequently as possible, I tell students about the ongoing Jewish

celebration of the Passover, the recollection of the angel of death's "passing

over" the Hebrew slaves' homes just before the pharaoh released them from

Egypt. For 30 centuries the descendants of Abraham and Sarah have begun

the Passover ritual with the youngest son asking the father, "Why is this night

different from all other nights?"And the father says, "We celebrate tonight

because we were slaves to pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord our God delivered us

with a mighty hand."There is a kind of immediacy about the way the account

is given, a placing of oneselfinto the story and an embracingof the story as

one's own. We can learn from such a ritual.