Communion

What difference does reading the Bible make in contemporary culture? Are biblical texts to be read as mere devotional tracts? Or do these texts have a more pervasive, though less visible, influence, shaping our lives, our attitudes and even our writing in mysterious ways? David Rosenberg (A Poet's Bible, 1992) gathers the voices of 40 well-known writers as they examine the effects that reading the Bible has had on their writing. Novelist Valerie Sayers contemplates the ways in which the Genesis story of Rebecca and the Lukan narrative of Mary and Martha have woven their stories into her stories about women in the modern South. Joyce Carol Oates, in a wickedly ironic piece, explores the Garden of Eden expulsions and the story in John of the woman taken in adultery. Helen Vendler crafts a small masterpiece on the manner in which the rhythms and themes of the Psalms and John, in particular, are integrated into our own experiences. But this collection is notable more for what is missing than for what is included. Where is the rich and gracious voice of Reynolds Price, for whom the biblical narratives, especially the gospels, are insistently woven into both his life and his writings? Where are John Updike's dyspeptic ruminations on things biblical, Clyde Edgerton's rollicking biblical comedy? (Mar.)