This is Scott Han and I want to welcome you to the Road to Amaeus, a podcast from the St Paul Center. How can we overcome our current crisis of faith? The same way we overcome our

crisis of loneliness through friendship. At least that's what the early

Christians would say. Learn more in Mike Aquiliness, friendship and the fathers.

Visit our shownotes at St Paul Center.com forward slash Road to Amayas a

podcast from the St Paul Center. Today we're beginning our third season. We're also changing direction.

Instead of simply me alone with you, I'm going to be inviting friends of mine to

join us for conversations and today I'm in the

studio with my close friend and co-worker of many years Rob Corzine. Rob welcome.

So good to be here and so good to be talking about this, which I think is really kind of close to the center of our mission.

Around here we talk a lot about reading scripture from the heart of the church and the church

itself talks about the study of scripture as the soul of theology but as we know well not is all well either in the world of theology

or in the world of scripture study and some of that has to do with the way that

people read scripture.

You've spoken and written a lot about the subject over the years,

including in your newest book, The Decline and Fall of Sacred Scripture,

how the Bible became a secular book.

That book tells a story about how some of the current difficulties came to be,

but I think a lot of people will find it helpful, even enlightening,

if we just take some time and have you clarify what the problem

is and take us through some of the basic distinctions that you make in the introduction of that book.

And we often hear modern scholars contrast what they do as academics

with pre-critical or pre-scientific methods

...