Chasing Mystery

Name: Chasing Mystery
Author: Carey Ellen Walsh

A Catholic Biblical Theology

Carey Ellen Walsh

eISBN: 9780814680940, 8094

Details: 176 pgs,
Publication Date: 09/01/2012

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Why does God have to be so exasperatingly silent? Why can't we see him at least long enough to allay doubt? How does one grow deeper in love with God against the cultural currents of disdain and antagonism?

Chasing Mystery is an exploration into how the Bible negotiates the presence and absence of God in the hopes of forging a path in situations where absences often seem more pressing than presences. Amid the prevailing skepticism and restlessness, says Walsh, we must relearn the skill of trust in reading Scripture. The aim is to experience God through holy writing.

Walsh offers a work in biblical theology that explores the liveliness of the God of the Bible. She insists that the pages of the Bible do not simply describe divine presence; they evoke it in the process of reading. Not all the time, certainly not predictably, but enough to warrant a trust. Her goal is to strengthen the heart's reading competency in order to facilitate our encounter with God.

Carey Walsh is associate professor of Old Testament at Villanova University. She is the author of Exquisite Desire: Religion, the Erotic, and the Song of Songs and The Fruit of the Vine: Viticulture in Ancient Israel.

eISBN: 9780814680940, 8094

Details: 176 pgs,
Publication Date: 09/01/2012

Reviews

Carey Walsh takes us into the thicket of Scripture, thorns and all, in order to `chase' the divine mystery. Though trained as a scholar, she is less interested in textual analysis than in exploring those moments of disclosure when the Bible breaks open and breaks in. Reading a quirky Old Testament narrative can be aggravating as well as difficult. But for those who persist, she argues, joy awaits, a journey begins-a bumpy movement from disturbance to awe to contentment. Sharing her own experience, Walsh helps us see where the holy may be lurking unnoticed, waiting to be discovered.

Peter S. Hawkins, Yale Divinity School, Author of Undiscovered Country: Imagining the World to Come

Chasing Mystery is a wide-ranging exploration of religious faith in today's world. Walsh seeks at every turn to connect her study with a careful analysis of key biblical texts. Unabashedly Roman Catholic in orientation, this book will nevertheless be of great interest to all who seek to confront the challenges of belief in our own age.

James Kugel, Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible, Bar Ilan, University, Israel, Author of How to Read the Bible

With the aim of addressing contemporary spiritual need, this enchantingly written book explores the ways various scriptural passages and genres negotiate, through mystical encounters, the problem of divine presence and absence. Walsh presents scripture's sly program of wonder initiated in Genesis 1-its library of religious experiences which prompt us to pay attention to our own theologies. Sensitizing readers to the mystery underlying numinous encounters with God, she invites them to notice the burning bushes and humble mangers in our own lives.

Patricia K. Tull, The Christian Century