The Bible and Mental Health: Insights from Greek Scholarship and Emerging Perspectives in the 21st Century
The Bible and Mental Health: Insights from Greek Scholarship and Emerging Perspectives in the 21st Century

Author(s): Sotirios Despotis
Subject(s): Theology and Religion, Sociology of Religion
Published by: Editura Doxologia
Keywords: Bible; Mental Health; Orthodoxy; Psychoanalysis; Hermeneutics; Liturgy; Kenosis; Prayer;
Summary/Abstract: New ways of interpreting the Bible are providing mental health professionals with innovative tools for therapeutic working with its texts. Rather than being intended for private reading, the Scriptures are life-stories crafted to be actively heard as unified Concertos or Oratorios within Communities. In the context of worship, these Communities enact the Scriptures, encountering – through characters who bear trauma and through surprising plot developments – a movement from the“land of idols” toward the Promised Land. This Promised Land represents a renewed connection with the Absolute and the Proto-Father. This spiritual journey parallels the stages of worship: the Liturgy before the Liturgy (the mystery of forgiveness), the Liturgy itself (the Eucharist), and the Liturgy after the Liturgy (a creative re-engagement with society and the whole of nature). Specific examples of the use of the Bible by Metropolitan Antony Bloom (1914-2003) in his book on prayer are presented already of the 70's decade. He is a characteristic example of a person who, like another Abraham, migrated from the East to the West and promoted Orthodoxy also through his medical profession.

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