Slip into a pew at a Catholic church almost anywhere in the world on a Sunday morning, and you'll likely find something missing: the Bible. More than five hundred years after the Bible came off the first printing press, why does the world's largest biblical religion often not have a printed Bible in the room? And if not, how is it that the life of Catholics is shaped by the Bible?

How Catholics Encounter the Bible explores the paradoxical role of the Bible for Catholics--a book central to their tradition, but not usually in the form of a book. Biblical ideas and beliefs are more often mediated through diverse modes of storytelling, artistic imagination, and ritual. Peppard begins from the conviction that the Bible, for Catholics, is not bound with leather book covers, but with the liturgical binding of the sign of the cross, the wrought-metal framing of a stained-glass window, or the lyrical structures of a God-haunted poet. He thus de-emphasizes the act of private, individual reading and instead analyzes distinctively Catholic approaches to the Bible through ritual, literature, the arts, and ethics. Primary among these encounters are the Mass and events of the life cycle, but Peppard also presents the Catholic Bible through the art of ancient Rome, pilgrimage in modern Mexico, the poetry of medieval mystics, and even contemporary American fiction. Through these curated highlights, the reader will see how the Bible thrives among Catholics, even if its printed text may be missing.

This globally influential book provides a historical and theological reassessment of the oldest Christian building ever discovered, the third-century house-church at Dura-Europos. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about Christian initiation, Peppard contends that rituals here did not primarily embody notions of death and resurrection. Rather, he portrays the motifs of the church’s wall paintings as those of empowerment, healing, marriage, and incarnation, while boldly reidentifying the figure of a woman formerly believed to be a repentant sinner as the Virgin Mary. This richly illustrated volume is a breakthrough work that enhances our understanding of early Christianity at the nexus of Bible, art, and ritual.

This award-winning book examines the social and political meaning of divine sonship in the Roman Empire. He begins by analyzing the conceptual framework within which the term ''son of God'' has traditionally been considered in biblical scholarship. Then, through engagement with recent scholarship in Roman history - including studies of family relationships, imperial ideology, and emperor worship - he offers new ways of interpreting the Christian theological metaphors of ''begotten''and ''adoptive'' sonship.

Peppard focuses on social practices and political ideology, revealing that scholarship on divine sonship has been especially hampered by mistaken assumptions about adopted sons. He invites fresh readings of several early Christian texts, from the first Gospel to writings of the fourth century. By re-interpreting several ancient phenomena - particularly divine status, adoption, and baptism - he offers an imaginative refiguring of the Son of God in the Roman world.