For decades, respected Scripture scholar Fr. William S. Kurz, S.J. has exemplified the unity of scholarship, faith, and action. In Reading and Living Scripture, edited by Jeremy Holmes and Kent Lasnoski, an international gathering of scholars pays tribute to his life and work.
The first essay speaks to the need for the unity Fr. Kurz has lived so well. The next three essays illuminate the kind of scholarship typical of Fr. Kurz’s career: one tracks the key verb “choose” across Luke-Acts; another investigates the dinner at Emmaus through an interpretation of Caravaggio’s famous painting; a third explores how we should imagine the everyday life of ordinary people in the seven cities that first received the book of Revelation. The next two essays, together with the final essay of the volume, examine the necessary union of exegesis and faith: one cannot separate exegesis of the human events of Scripture from the theological meaning of the text, because human agency cannot be...