What is it about being a follower of Jesus that lends some to study the bible for their own agenda and others to imagine multiple frameworks? If you really think about it, we use our imagination when we read the bible. We transport ourselves in a time machine and enter into an ancient world full of stories written by people with imagination!
“The only way to understand scripture is to exercise imagination. You have to enter into an alternate universe. You have to embrace metaphor, poetry, and symbolical language and recognize the only way we are going to get at God is to use our imagination.” – Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams – author of Holy Imagination: A Literary Theological Introduction to the Whole Bible.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright sit down with Dr. Judy Fentress Williams and talk about imagination in the bible and the wonder we encounter when we open ourselves up to imagining the bible in a non-linear fashion. What happens when we don’t use our imagination to read the bible and in owe put God into something small that fits our beliefs? God is larger than what we can comprehend and imagine!
The Rev. Judy Fentress-Williams, Ph.D., is Professor of Old Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary since 2002. Her areas of expertise include Hebrew Bible, dialogic interpretation, religious studies, Afro-American studies, and literary criticism. Dr. Fentress-Williams received her Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Yale University in 1999. Her dissertation entitled, “What Has Happened to the Son of Kish? A Dialogic Reading of Saul in I Samuel” reflects her interest in a literary approach that celebrates the multiple voices and inter-textuality of scripture. Judy is married to Kevin Williams, M.D. and they have two children, Samantha and Jacob.
