The Bible and the Liturgy

I've actually been reading The Bible and the Liturgy, by biblical theologian Jean Danielou, S.J., for several months, and finished it tonight. It has been my reading for my weekly hour at Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament on Tuesday nights.

Readers of the works of Scott Hahn, a biblical scholar and a convert to the Catholic Church who has brought many into the fullness of the faith, may not know that this work is something of a touchstone for him, being about typologies of the Tanakh, (which Christians call the Old Testament), and how they are woven into the accounts of the New Testament and the major feast-days of the Church, particularly Easter and Pentecost. Hahn has amplified Danielou's insights to produce a number of books on subjects like the Book of Revelation and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Before this I had worked my way through Pope Benedict's Jesus of Nazareth, another brilliant work of biblical theology. I have found over the years that this is my preferred method of Bible study: not to work my way doggedly through a book of the Bible, but rather to read a scholarly work about the Bible with references all through the Bible, keeping my Bible close at hand.