For those academics and ministers who regularly engage with Christian scripture, The Bible and Disability: A Commentary is exactly what it sounds like: a biblical commentary focused on disability-specific readings of scripture.
For those unfamiliar, a “commentary” is a book that breaks scripture down into small pieces, of verses and sections, and then provides informed context to each tiny morsel. How is this sentence structured? What is this verse referencing? What words were chosen in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages? What do different translations suggest about meaning? What historical, social, and religious norms of the time are being evoked in this section? How have people historically interpreted and used these lines?
Commentaries have often been published on specific books of the Bible by editors, translators, and scripture scholars with particular expertise or denominational commitments. Commentaries are almost never homiletic: The insights offered are not opinions or reflections, but textual.
In recent years, more and more biblical commentaries have been released with eyes toward modern identity groups and contemporary issues. Commentaries of this nature allow for dual insights: What social conceptions of certain identities and issues were at the time-of-writing or time-of-translation, and how have these texts been interpreted throughout history to both the benefit and detriment of certain persons and causes?
This commentary is a no-brainer for those interested in researching disability’s appearance in scripture and scripture’s uses in the contexts of disability justice. It is also an important resource for anyone working in a ministerial context who finds themself regularly preaching or developing programs and messaging. Whether or not any of it is explicitly about disability, ableism can sneak into Christian encounters with lessons on healing, morality, and well-being. A quick scan of the texts-in-question before preparing a homily or lesson plan would do any priest, minister, or educator some good.