Welcome, friends and lovers, to a way of working our way through the Bible, mostly following the daily lectionary used by the world's great churches. What's different is that we're unconcerned with those churches or, indeed, preserving any institution or authority other than our own relationships with the divine force as it may speak to us through these ancient texts.

This project began in 2006 as a column for the weekly newsletter of the Presbyterian Church at Franklin Lakes (NJ), where bks is an elder member. Since 9/07, she has been Writer in Residence of the Presbytery of the Palisades. Each weekend bks looks ahead to the readings for the coming week in the 3 main narrative threads for a word, phrase, or idea that speaks something new to me. I often do a little word study using resources readily available in public libraries and bookstores. (I have successfully completed Biblical Hebrew at Princeton Theological Seminary, but am satisfied to know Greek through an interlinear NRSV and Strong's Concordance of the KJV. And the kindness of strangers and friends, of course.) (Back columns are available for a small fee to PayPal. Write me directly.)

By posting the Dabar column to this list, I hope to engage those struck by it at PCFL, Palisades and others, in a more active and timely dialogue. I'm here primarily to learn. I'll be glad to hear and consider anything you wish to say about what I've written. But I will not be engaged in any criticism ad hominem or based in deviation from tradition, lack of canonical authority, or my being a heretic. I know I am and do and lack those things. I choose not to be bound by them. I will happily welcome the insights of those more scholarly and experienced than I, and I hope you will talk to each other. But anyone arguing with others on the list outside the parameters above will be asked to take it private, and if they persist, all parties will be excluded from this list.

Shalom,
The Irrev. Barbara Kellam-Scott