By Dr. Scott Hahn

You should have been there.

My colleague Dr. Brant Pitre had just delivered an electrifying talk on the "new exodus" theme in Scripture - and the standing ovation he received just about raised the roof.

I don't think I've ever had a tougher act to follow. But I wasn't thinking about the talk I had to give. I found myself just looking out over the packed auditorium with a big smile on my face.

More than 700 people turned out for our recent West Coast Biblical Studies Conference - young and old, single and married, priests and religious, white, black, Hispanic and Asian. In the back of the room there was a Hispanic family with young children on their feet clapping.

"My, how far we've come!" I thought to myself. This wasn't a family conference, a pro-life workshop or a retreat. This was a seminar on a frankly academic topic - the Catholic Church and the kingdom of God in the Bible. And here they were, hundreds of ordinary Catholics from different parts of the country with their Bibles open - just loving every minute of it and hungry for more.

This was our second annual conference, co-sponsored with the Catholic Resource Center; it was held in late January in Southern California.

In addition to Brant's talk, I gave a talk about the Davidic kingdom symbolism in Luke's Gospel; Dr. Ted Sri spoke about the importance of the Queen Mother in Israel. Michael Barber and Father Richard Simon also gave rousing and in-depth talks.

The conference brought something home to me about our work at the St. Paul Center. Our on-line classes, programs and publications mostly serve beginners - introducing them to the Bible, teaching them how to read it faithfully and with confidence.

But we're also serving a growing number of Catholics who want to take their study of Scripture to the next level. For them, we're making advanced biblical scholarship exciting, accessible and understandable.

We're offering challenging on-line courses for advanced students. We've just launched the "Letter & Spirit Project" to publish important scholarship in biblical theology, and we're getting ready to release the first issue of our academic journal. Later this year, we'll release an academic text for seminarians and motivated lay people.

At the conference, one gentleman in his early 60s stopped me in the hallway between talks. "Can you believe this?" he said excitedly. "I'm just a layman. I'm not supposed to be able to do 'academic' study of the Bible. But we're really going deep! You know, once you've tasted Scripture study at this level, there's no going back!"

He's right, of course. We are witnessing the first flowering of a new springtime of the Bible in the Church. And there's no turning back now.

March 2005