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After college, I took an adult education course offered through the Church in Washington, D.C. It was on the Old Testament and I expected a decent-enough teacher who probably had a day job.

Instead, we were treated to Rev. Lawrence Boadt, a leading Catholic biblical scholar whose star was rising quickly while he was still in his early 40s. He also spent many summer days in our Diocese at St. Mary's on the Lake, the Paulist Fathers' outpost and retreat house on the east shore of Lake George.

Father Boadt died July 24 after a long battle with cancer.

In class, his spare, impassioned manner in teaching Scripture revealed to me the great depths of the Catholic intellectual tradition. I most remember his reiterated insight that Scripture "reveals the hand of God moving through history."

For me, that solved the conundrum of balancing historicity with revelation and made the Bible the living word of God that speaks to us every day.

Father Boadt was a longtime professor of biblical studies at Fordham University and the Washington Theological Union, and a prolific author of scholarly and popular books. His best-known, "Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction," has sold strongly for 25 years.

My original copy has his signature, in a mild cursive tilted toward the future.

(08/05/10)[[In-content Ad]]

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