‘Of course anybody can pick it up, but, in a way, what they pick up is going to depend on who picks it up. Someone who picks up the Bible should know, irrespective of their intentions for reading it, that this text has a long history of being the opening chapter of a foundational story for two quite different communities, the Jewish and the Christian. And of course, other people can read it for whatever reason they want to read it. But part of the history of the text is its preservation by these two different communities as the story explaining who they believe themselves to be. So the Bible exists historically as a communal book, and these community readings have been privileged over the individual's. Yet individuals in communities read the text, and influence how a community interprets it. What compels these individuals to pick up the Bible is that they understand it to be the Word of God, written in completely human words. This is not something we feel comfortable leaving only to the community; the Word of God is something you want to hear for yourself.'
