austraLasia #3014
A Jew and a Christian Read the Bible
MELBOURNE: 11 February 2012 --
Fr Frank Moloney
finished his term of office as the Provincial in Australia and
the
Pacific on December 31. Fr Greg Chambers has now taken
on the
burden of that office. Although Frank has managed to
“keep his
hand in” over his six years (he has published each year), he
has now
been appointed a Senior Professorial Fellow at Australian
Catholic
University, and thus able to return to a scholarly life.
His
tasks are to teach in graduate seminars, to supervise doctoral
dissertations, to monitor some of the younger professors, and
to make a
contribution to the research profile of the University.
He returned to the podium in the middle of January, when he
worked with
a Jewish Rabbi to present a special summer course in the
Master of
Theology programme: “A Christian and a Rabbi read the
Bible.” It
was an exciting venture for a number of reasons. In the
first
place, the University made extensive use of IT to deliver this
course
to Masters students all over the University. Frank was
located on
ACU’s Strathfield Campus in Sydney, Rabbi Fred Morgan was
located at
the Melbourne Campus, and students from Brisbane and Canberra
also were
able to be there.
How? Via a closed video link-up. Each morning the
presenters spoke for three hours and received questions.
In the
afternoons, each geographical location met to share some
reflected
reading and discussions. They then went to the computer
library
and carried on a directed link-up across the university for
two more
hours. Several other biblical professors from across the
University were present at all the afternoon sessions.
One of the
many extra values of this method is that all the material –
both visual
and sound – are recorded and still available for consultation.
This was the first time the University had delivered a unit in
this
fashion for the whole University, which has campuses in
Brisbane,
Sydney (2), Canberra, Melbourne and Ballarat. Rabbi Fred
Morgan
gave an illuminating series of lectures on the interpretative
methods
of the Jewish tradition, introducing students to the midrashic
method
of interpretation, and sharing some close readings of
Targumim, the
early Midrashim, the two Talmudim, and some of the later great
Jewish
commentators.
It was a stimulating “first” for many ACU students.
Professor
Moloney spoke generally about principles of Christian
interpretation,
and then did exercises on texts that looked back to the Old
Testament:
the infancy narrative of Matthew, the passion narrative of
Luke, and
the Johannine use of the Old Testament. The Rabbi and
Frank
entered into lively discussion, and both learnt something from
one
another, as the students followed and entered the
debate.
The critical issue, respected by both scholars, was the
unconditional
commitment of the Jewish tradition to the application and
interpretation of Torah in each new age and situation, and the
unconditional commitment of the Christian tradition to a
contemporary
reading of Sacred Scripture that sees everything through the
lens of
what God has done for us in and through the person of Jesus
Christ.