Is It Time to Move Beyond ‘Synoding’?

Is It Time to Move Beyond ‘Synoding’?

In the first volume of his trilogy, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Pope Benedict XVI saluted the important contributions that historical-critical analysis of the literary forms and editorial “layers” of ancient texts had made to understanding the Bible. The pope also suggested that the essential fruits of that method had been harvested and that the time had come for a less dissecting approach to biblical interpretation: one that “read individual [biblical…