austraLasia #2684
 
Scholar speaks to people through a 'friendly guide'

MELBOURNE: 31 July 2010 -- From time to time some of the world's great scholars seek or are given the opportunity to bring their scholarship to the ordinary, even and especially non-academic amongst us. Some struggle at this task, others do it very well. Fr Frank Moloney, Scripture scholar, is in the latter camp with a recent publication called A friendly Guide to the New Testament, John Garratt Publishing, Melbourne.
    In a beautifully published work of 64 full colour pages, here is a guide that will benefit anyone who reads it - including the more scholarly types!  But its aim is to "introduce a first-time reader or a reader with only passing acquaintance to the two-thousand-year-old richness of the Church's New Testament". And really, there's a lifetime of scholarship packed into this guide, but in most accessible language. Often times, other than the description of one or other aspect of the New Testament, Frank conveys the scholarship by a series of questions which provide information yet enagage and challenge the reader; 'Did you know' questions like: Did you know that many Christians over the centuries have lived the way of the cross and continue to do so? Or, Did you know that Paul challenged his communities to not just talk about their belief, but to show it by letting the same mind be in them as was in Jesus?
    By focusing on the main books of the New Testament - the Gospels and Paul's letters - a choice he has made based on their resonance in ordinary life and literature, and their constant repetition in liturgy, Frank has answered such questions as 'who wrote the New Testament?', How has it come down to us in its present form? What did the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ mean for Jesus' first followers, St Paul and the early Christians? How can we use New Testament Scripture to deepen our faith?
    Further information can be found at www.johngarratt.com.au
   
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