Cooking Up Better Biblical Interpretation (feat. Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi)

CW: As a heads up, Aaron describes the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which includes mention of rape. If this is a tender subject for you, please take care while listening. 

This week, Mary B is joined by biblical scholars Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi to discuss their upcoming book Serving Up Scripture: How to Interpret the Bible for Yourself and Others. The book offers accessible tools for interpreting scripture with care, curiosity, and context. Rather than a black and white understanding of the text as right or wrong, Bashaw and Higashi invite readers to ask important questions of the text: What genre is this? Who wrote it, and under what circumstances? Who benefits from this interpretation, and which social relationships are being privileged? They also encourage theological reflection, asking what a passage suggests about God.

Using cooking as a guiding metaphor, Serving Up Scripture treats biblical texts as ingredients to create a meaningful interpretation. In this conversation, Mary, Jen, and Aaron explore how this approach can help defang interpretations of the Bible that have been used to harm others. As Higashi, quoting St. Augustine, reminds us, “any understanding of the Bible that increases the two fold love between human beings and each other, or human beings and God is a good interpretation.”

Jennifer Garcia Bashaw is a professor at Campbell University and an ordained Baptist minister. She has a PhD in New Testament from Fuller Seminary and is the author of Scapegoats: The Gospel through the Eyes of Victims and John for Normal People: A Guide through the Drama and Depth of the Fourth Gospel.

Aaron Higashi is a public Bible scholar with a PhD in biblical interpretation from Chicago Theological Seminary. He writes Bible commentaries, including 1 & 2 Samuel for Normal People: A Guide to Prophets, Kings, and Some Pretty Terrible Men, and answers Bible questions on Instagram at @abhigashi.

Preorder your copy of Serving Up Scripture wherever you buy books. Follow Jen on Instagram @jgbashaw and Aaron on TikTok @aaron.higashi and Instagram @abhigashi. Jennifer and Aaron's other books are available; just search for each of their names wherever you buy books. 

This is our last Found Family episode for a couple of months! I am taking a much-needed break. Feel free to peruse old episodes or join the very free Found Family crew over on Substack for a free monthly message from me.