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Bible and Liturgy in Dialogue
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Bible and Liturgy in Dialogue

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 September 2025 | Viewed by 2218

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Marco Benini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Catholic Theology, Theologische Fakultät Trier, Trier, Germany
Interests: Bible and liturgy; liturgical movement in the US and Germany; liturgical catechesis; hymns

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

“Sacred Scripture is of the greatest importance in the celebration of the liturgy” (Sacrosanctum concilium, 24). The Bible shapes the liturgy like no other book: readings are recited and psalms are sung from it, prayers and hymns are scriptural in their inspiration, signs and actions (e. g. the washing of feet on Holy Thursday, baptismal rites like the Ephphetha rite or the bapstismal garment, etc.) derive their meaning from Scripture. The Bible, therefore, helps to understand liturgy.

At the same time, the liturgy interprets the Bible and makes Scripture present. Liturgy helps us to understand the Bible for instance through intertextual connections of various Scripture passages. Liturgy uses the Bible as a means of encountering God and enables the listeners to perceive it as a living and timly “Word of the Lord” to us. Worship makes Scripture accessable to many faithful and fosters a liturgical-biblical sprituality. The reception of Scripture is part of active participation in the liturgy. A liturgical hermeneutics of Scripture is a recent field in academia. Also the magisterium of the Catholic Church (e. g. Verbum Domini 52) backs such a “liturgical approach.”

This Special Issue aims to explore the rich relationships between Bible and liturgy, both in history and in the present. It looks into the field of liturgy in Scripture, the various usages of Scripture throughout history and in today’s liturgy in which the use of the Bible has been expanded through the liturigal reform of the Second Vatican Council and of other denominations (e.g. Revised Common Lectionary). The special issue opens up a dialogue between liturgical and biblical studies which in recent years has been intensified.

Contributions from multiple disciplinary perspectives are encouraged. In this Special Issue, we are pleased to invite your original research articles and reviews in this field of interaction of Bible and Liturgy. Research areas may include the following:

  • Liturgy in the Old and New Testament: How does the bible describe liturgy? How does the Bible delineate foundamental principles for worship which are relavent for today as well? What socio-cultural factors determine the nature, essence and content of (early Jewish and early Christian) liturgies? How did the public reading in the liturgy contribute to the emergence of the canon?
  • Understanding the Liturgy from Scripture: How is the Bible the basis for understanding liturgical acts and language (biblical quotations, allusions etc.)? How does it help to understand certain rites and rituals better? What changes if you look at /analyse the liturgy through the lens of Scripture?
  • Understanding Scripture from the liturgy / liturgical hermeneutics of Scripture: What hermeneutical principles for Scripture emerge from its liturgical use? How did/does the liturgical setting (feast, season, genre of use, type of worship etc.) or the intertextual combination of pericopes, psalms, and prayers/orations influence the interpretation of the used biblical passages? What adds the comparison of liturgical traditions to a liturgical hermeneutics?
  • The reception of Scripture in the liturgy: How is Scripture used in the various genres (like readings, songs, prayers, signs and actions)? What aspects of Scripture were/are highlighted, what ignored? The aim here would be to understand the use of Scripture in the liturgy as part of the “reception history” and to examine the historical factors and forces: What of the biblical canon has been received in the liturgy or what/why not?
  • Order of Readings in various Western and Eastern rites and donominations: What has shaped the historical or current reading order? Assessing the current order or reading, what would be appropriate for further development?
  • Liturgical reform and Scripture: What did the liturgical or the biblical movement before the Second Vatican Council contribute in the field of Bible and liturgy? How did the liturgical reform highlight the importance of Scripture?
  • Systematic reflections like on the sacramentality of the word; anamnesis of Scripure; unity of Scripture in Christ; Word and Holy Spirit.
  • Interdisciplinary research: How can liturgical, biblical, sytematic or historical studies contribute to a dialogue of Bible and liturgy? 

Prior to submitting a manuscript, please submit a proposed title and an abstract of about 300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor (benini@uni-trier.de), or to the Assistant Editor of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Marco Benini
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bible
  • liturgy
  • hermeneutics
  • old/new testament
  • interpretation
  • reception
  • readings
  • psalms
  • sacramentality
  • anamnesis

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 183 KiB  
Article
Second Sunday of Lent: One Example of Use of Bible in Celebration of Liturgy
by Paul Turner
Religions 2025, 16(6), 777; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060777 (registering DOI) - 15 Jun 2025
Abstract
The liturgy of the Catholic Church adopts and reframes passages from Scripture in manifold ways. At times a passage is proclaimed or sung in the liturgy exactly as it appears in the Bible; at other times, a prayer or antiphon draws from one [...] Read more.
The liturgy of the Catholic Church adopts and reframes passages from Scripture in manifold ways. At times a passage is proclaimed or sung in the liturgy exactly as it appears in the Bible; at other times, a prayer or antiphon draws from one or more verses of the Scripture for inspiration. In order to demonstrate this twofold practice, this article presents a single example of a random day on the liturgical calendar, the Second Sunday of Lent. It will explore the uses of Scripture in the revised entrance and communion antiphons, the restoration of long-neglected ancient presidential prayers, the composition of a new collect and preface, the three-year cycle of readings, and the intersection of biblical references between the Roman Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours. By examining a single example, the reader will come to a deeper appreciation of the depth of the interplay between the Bible and liturgy on every day of the calendar. This article will cite the present and previous Roman Missals, the Roman Gradual, the context for the structure of the Lectionary for Mass on this day as the revisers conceived it, and unique features from the Liturgy of the Hours. It will also show how particular biblical references on one day reappear in other liturgical celebrations, expanding the reader’s appreciation of the specific application of biblical texts to a variety of liturgical events. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bible and Liturgy in Dialogue)
16 pages, 206 KiB  
Article
Liturgy and Scripture in Dialogue in the Baptismal Feasts of the Episcopal Church
by Charles Gerald Martin
Religions 2025, 16(6), 770; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060770 - 13 Jun 2025
Viewed by 89
Abstract
The liturgical reforms of the mid-twentieth century had major impacts on not only the forms of liturgies in the Western church but also on liturgical theology. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, the Anglican province in the United States, [...] Read more.
The liturgical reforms of the mid-twentieth century had major impacts on not only the forms of liturgies in the Western church but also on liturgical theology. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, the Anglican province in the United States, along with several dioceses across the world, represents the culmination of these developments in that jurisdiction. Among its revolutionary suggestions is the reservation of Holy Baptism for certain occasions: the Easter Vigil, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day or the Sunday following, the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, and the visitation of a bishop. Many liturgical guides emphasize the advantages of observing these so-called “baptismal feasts,” but none treat them in any lengthy manner. Do the different occasions for baptism have something specific to say about what baptism is? How do the appointed lectionary readings shed light on baptism, and vice versa? In this article, I will explore these feasts and especially their assigned lessons in the Revised Common Lectionary. I will show that when read with a liturgical hermeneutics, the appointed scriptures and, therefore, the baptismal feasts themselves paint a comprehensive picture of a contemporary baptismal theology. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bible and Liturgy in Dialogue)
15 pages, 6502 KiB  
Article
The Connection Between Baptism and the Reception of the Spirit in Becoming a Christian in Luke-Acts
by Katja Hess
Religions 2025, 16(6), 763; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16060763 - 13 Jun 2025
Viewed by 124
Abstract
The Traditio Apostolica presents, within the context of Christian baptism, first the water baptism accompanied by a profession of faith, followed by prayer with the laying on of hands. The purpose of this initiation process is the forgiveness of sins, which is more [...] Read more.
The Traditio Apostolica presents, within the context of Christian baptism, first the water baptism accompanied by a profession of faith, followed by prayer with the laying on of hands. The purpose of this initiation process is the forgiveness of sins, which is more strongly implied in the water rite, and the gift of the Spirit, which is implied in the laying on of hands. This sequence of baptism and laying on of hands, in connection with faith and Spirit reception, is also evident in Acts 19:1–7. Apart from Acts 8:5–25, however, it is the only passage that links baptism with laying on of hands followed by Spirit reception. Moreover, it is the only instance of a rebaptism within the Lukan double work. The focus of this article is not primarily on the question of the historicity of this rite during the New Testament period but on a narratological-intratextual analysis of the relationship between baptism and Spirit reception, that is, to what extent the reader, against the background of the preceding narrative in Luke-Acts, is led to an understanding of this relationship and its significance for becoming a Christian. The article argues that faith plays a decisive role in the Christian initiation process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bible and Liturgy in Dialogue)
15 pages, 324 KiB  
Article
Liturgy of the Hours and the Lectio Continua of the Psalter
by Dieter Böhler
Religions 2024, 15(12), 1511; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15121511 - 11 Dec 2024
Viewed by 1346
Abstract
In the last 40 years, the exegesis of the Psalms has made it increasingly clear that the Psalms should be read as a coherent book, since the individual Psalms are linked together by iuxtapositio and concatenatio. They are not just isolated poems but [...] Read more.
In the last 40 years, the exegesis of the Psalms has made it increasingly clear that the Psalms should be read as a coherent book, since the individual Psalms are linked together by iuxtapositio and concatenatio. They are not just isolated poems but tell a story, the story of David, God’s anointed king who is persecuted and suffers, but ultimately is triumphant—a Christological story. This article examines how the principle of lectio continua of the Psalter is taken into account in the breviaries of Pius V, Pius X and Paul VI, and it shows what problems arise when it is disregarded. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bible and Liturgy in Dialogue)
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