ABSTRACT
Every child knows that good stories may be, indeed must be, told over and over again; Bible stories are not peculiar in this regard. Repetition is, of course, a prominent characteristic of ritual, and the author is suggesting that when the Bible is read within the believing community people have a ritual way of reading which is a special kind of dialogue between the reader and the text. There is, at least potentially, a conflict between the study of the Bible as a holy book within the Church, and the study of the Bible as an important ancient text within the university. There are significant differences in approach, techniques and motives for study, as well as in the uses to which the results of study are put. The two social contexts people have already distinguished have, of course, an area of overlap, and both are set within the broader social and cultural context of the modern West.
