Little Rock Scripture Study recently invited Catholics to walk in the footsteps of those who lived in the first century. Its 17th annual Bible Institute was held June 16-18 at St. John Center in Little Rock.
Approximately 110 participants from eight states attended the weekend event to learn more about the New Testament with presenter, Father J. Patrick Mullen, formation director at St. John Seminary in Camarillo, Calif.
One participant, Renee Richard of New Iberia, La., attended with her sister, Therese McFall of Heber Springs.
This was Richard’s first conference. She learned about Little Rock Scripture Study through her home parish, Nativity of Our Lady Church. She said she was impressed with the conference and Father Mullen.
“He engages the audience to make you want to learn it. It is warming to your heart on your journey of faith,” she said.
A biblical scholar and professor of ancient languages, Father Mullen’s presentation on cultural anthropology quickly captured the audience. With humor and lively discussion, he set out to explain how to approach and understand the New Testament, not with our 21st century values, but rather through the eyes of those living in those ancient cultures.
According to Father Mullen, people today who study the Bible “are not thinking of the people in the ancient world.” He said people today don’t take into consideration the lack of modern conveniences in that time period: electricity, antibiotics, clean water, buttons, forks, eyeglasses.
“Our world is nothing like theirs,” he said.
It is more than just translating the words of the texts or identifying ethnic connections.
Throughout the weekend, he gave examples of how people in the first century dealt with food, illness, ritual purity and relationships between men and women. Father Mullen related several interesting facts about biblical times. He said as much as 90 percent of illnesses were dealt with by isolating the sick person. By age 30 nearly 75 percent of the population was dead. Such ailments as internal parasites, rotten teeth and blindness were rampant among the people.
In the ancient cultures, 98 percent of the population was illiterate and 60 percent were slaves. In keeping with certain gender traditions, the writers were men writing for a male audience.
“But because God is inspiring these men to write, he was also inspiring them to listen to what the women in those cultures were saying,” Mullen said.
In addressing the role of gender in society, Father Mullen said women’s roles were difficult. Over the centuries the development of the idea of kingship meant heirs. To have heirs meant to control the offspring. To control the offspring meant to control women in the process.
“We are not all the same,” he said. “We like to say in America that everyone is equal. But in the ancient world, human dignity was absent. Being sold into slavery said something about you as a person. You caused this to happen.”
In his homily at the closing Mass on Sunday, Father Mullen spoke again about the differences in the ancient and the contemporary cultures and addressed the importance of daily bread in the lives of all people. For people who lived so close to starvation then, bread was what they survived on day after day.
“It is this Bread that we continue to celebrate in the Eucharist that tells us it was God who chooses to become human,” he said. “He embraces humanity. He said, ’This is what I am going to use.’ In ordinary things you will find the holy.”