About this episode
What happens when we stop treating the Bible as a sacred object and start paying attention to how we actually use it? In this conversation, theologian David Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and the ethics of reading scripture in a fractured world.
In this episode with Evan Rosa, Dault reflects on interpretation, responsibility, and how readers shape the meaning and moral impact of the Bible.
Together they discuss the materiality of scripture, translation and betrayal, moral seriousness, scriptural reasoning across traditions, catastrophic love, and the ethical responsibility readers bear for how sacred texts are used.
Episode Highlights
“To assume that we know what a text is telling us is a matter of hubris.”
“The Bible doesn’t tell you to do anything. You as a reader decide what to do.”
“Violence is always an act of interpretation.”
“We never get to a place where everything is clean and everyone benefits.”
“We have to take responsibility for the violence we involve ourselves in.”
About David Dault
David Dault is a theologian, journalist, and media producer whose work explores religion, culture, ethics, and interpretation. He is Executive Producer and host of Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith, a nationally distributed public radio program. He teaches in the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago. Dault’s scholarship focuses on hermeneutics, religion and media, and the ethical implications of how sacred texts are interpreted and used in public life. His book The Accessorized Bible examines the material forms, cultural framing, and interpretive communities that shape how people encounter scripture. He holds degrees in theology and religious studies and frequently writes and lectures on religion, politics, and culture.
Helpful Links And Resources
The Accessorized Bible, by David Dault https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300153125/the-accessorized-bible/
Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith https://thingsnotseenradio.com
David Dault’s personal website https://www.daviddault.com/
Show Notes
The Accessorized Bible—material culture of scripture, design, marketing niches, and the ways the physical form of the Bible shapes how readers interpret and use it
Bible as object, medium, and cultural artifact; Marshall McLuhan and media theory—the form of a book shaping how ideas move between minds
Books as technologies of imagination and identity formation; reading as a kind of “magical” transfer of ideas from one mind into another
“To assume that we know what a text is telling us is a matter o
