by Peter Pitzele Ph.D.

 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” Ezekial 37: 1-3
 

 The Bible in Crisis

 

   For many centuries, the Bible—the Jewish and Christian scriptures—enjoyed a place at the center of Western culture. Here was the source of law, inspiration, comfort, hope, and redemption for countless numbers of people. At the same time, the Bible  was also misused; many evils were perpetrated in its name by those who believed they were in possession of the true meaning of this book. Many nations were demonized because they did not bow down to the God of the Bible or its priests and interpreters. But those days of hegemony are gone.

   We live in a time when the Bible is no longer taken for granted by most educated people as a book of central importance for ethical and spiritual education. On the one hand, the Bible has passed into the hands of fundamentalists who beat out a march of absolutism and apocalypse; on the other, it has become an archeological artifact which an academic elite search for signs of a distant past.

   Meanwhile the children of the Jewish and Christian traditions go looking elsewhere for their spiritual sustenance. They migrate towards the religions of the East; they become infatuated with new forms of healing and psychology; they seek the feeling of connectedness in new tribal forms, but they do not look to the Bible for the discovery of meaning, identity, or community.

   The dilemma facing those of us of a liberal and pluralistic persuasion who are committed in one way of another to revitalization of the Jewish and Christian traditions and therefore to the Bible is this: How to teach or preach the Bible in such a way that its power to comfort, heal, connect, and guide us can be recaptured? Or as the Lord asks his prophet Ezekial, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

   That is our question. Can we take the old, dry bones of the Bible and give them breath so that they may live again. Some of us now working in the field of Bible-study believe that Bibliodrama is part of the answer.

 

What is Bibliodrama?

 

   Most simply described, Bibliodrama is a form of role-playing in which the roles played are taken from biblical universe. The roles may be those of characters who appear in the Bible, either explicitly and by name (major characters like Adam or Eve, Mary or Martha; or minor characters like Seth or Elizabeth). Bibliodrama may call forth figures whose presence may be inferred from an imaginative reading of the text (Noah’s wife or Simon Peter’s mother). In Bibliodrama the reservoir of available roles may also include certain objects or images which can be embodied in voice and action (the ark which carried the infant Moses down the Nile , or the Cross on which Jesus died). Places can speak (the Jordan River or Calvary ). Or animals may speak (The Serpent in the Garden; the rooster which crowed at dawn). In Bibliodrama one may give expression to spiritual figures (angels, or God, or Satan). Then there are figures in the Jewish and Christian tradition that belong to legend and apocrypha—Lilith for example, or Susanna—who may be brought on stage in Bibliodrama. Bibliodrama allows us to imagine and to represent the entire biblical universe as a field of imaginative play.

   About fifteen years ago, Bibliodrama sprang up simultaneously in America and in Europe. Only in the last few years have American and European Bibliodramatists begun to converse with one another. At present these two bibliodramatic cultures derive not only from different geographies, but form different religious traditions. American Bibliodrama is largely practiced within certain sectors of the American Jewish community, while European Bibliodrama has been taken up among liberal Christians.

    As a representative of American Bibliodrama, and as one who has practiced it largely but not exclusively within the Jewish community in the United States,[1] I have become involved with the growth of Bibliodrama and seen it become more and more widely recognized and appreciated as a tool for bringing the Bible alive and for actively engaging the imagination in the recovery of biblical stories and the wisdom they contain. I have used Bibliodrama from the pulpit with groups as large as five hundred and in the classroom with children as young as four years old. I have used Bibliodrama with multi-generational and with intra-faith groups, and in my work as a teacher of Bibliodrama I have been able to transmit its methods to rabbis, pastors, chaplains, priests and lay educators.

 

   To understand better how Bibliodrama works, it is useful to remember something about the nature of biblical narrative.

 

    Biblical Storytelling

 

   The great German literary critic Erich Auerbach, in an essay called the “The scar of Odysseus,”[2] noticed how in biblical story-telling “certain parts of the narrative are brought into high relief, other parts left obscure.” He goes on to talk about how “abruptness and the suggestive influence of the unseen” characterize the narrative style of stories which are told with a “multiplicity of meanings.” Above all, he says the biblical style is “laconic”’ leaving much up to the reader’s imagination. To make sense of the biblical narrative, we must read more deeply; we are left on our own to figure out things like motivation, or the feelings of characters, or the ways they see themselves and one another. We are like viewers looking at the few strokes of the Chinese scroll painter’s brush who fill in the entire landscape.

 

White Fire and Black Fire

 

   The Jewish tradition has its own way of describing this fact about biblical narrative. The ancient Rabbis spoke of the Bible as having been written in black fire and white fire. The black fire are the words on the page, the black ink of the letters which each of us can see and read. Though written words are, like all words, slippery and capable of meaning many things, the words stand before us as given; they are fixed in the canonized text . They can be analyzed, looked up in dictionaries, understood in context, and they cannot be altered.

   The white fire is the space between the words on the page or scroll, the space around the words, even the space between the letters. Because of the commandment against the making of graven images, Judaism did not develop a tradition of religious art and illustration as a response to the white fire. That impulse to illustrate, explain, and imagine took place in words, in what began as an oral commentary on the Bible and gradually passed into writing and formed a body of sacred material called The Midrash.

   The Midrash[3]—the interpretation, explanation, and illumination of the black fire of the biblical text— was codified centuries ago in a series of volumes that for the traditional Jew represents a definitive commentary on the Bible, its stories and laws.

    However, for more liberal minded Jews, and especially in the last two generations in the United States, there has been a renaissance of interest in midrash, not as a fixed body of commentary, but as a process of interpretation: midrash, taking the form of poetry and play, as dance and song, inspired by the Bible’s laconic style, its narrative spaces and gaps.[4] The white fire is very much a-kindle; it flickers in many places, and one of its tongues is Bibliodrama.

 

  

Bibliodrama: A Sample

 

   Bibliodrama proceeds as a form of improvisational dramatic play. It is conducted by a trained director or facilitator whose task is to prepare participants to read and enact a biblical story together. The Bibliodrama director (or Bibliodramatist) helps people find and express themselves in roles; he or she guides and process by which the group creates its interpretive drama, and then brings the drama to a close. Trained in the arts of storytelling, in the interpretation both of the Bible and of group process, and skillful in the methods of dramatic play, the Bibliodramatist shepherds people into the world of biblical myth.

   Given the spontaneous and multi-dimensional nature of the bibliodramatic experience, it is always difficult to capture it in writing. But something of the flavor of the bibliodramatic event may be rendered in what follows.

 

    I have been invited to demonstrate Bibliodrama to a group of men and women in their last year at Seminary. I have introduced myself and placed the work I do within the tradition of modern midrash. Then I share with the group the story I have chosen. It comes from chapter 24 of Genesis. We read it together carefully before we begin.[5] Then I set the bibliodramatic process in motion:

   “You know this moment of Rebecca’s departure seems to me to have all sorts of unnamed characters in it. Who might be gathering to say Good-Bye to Rebecca? And I’d like us to put our answer into action; I’d like us to make a kind of tableau of this moment in the Bible. We’ll take the story off the page and stand it on its feet right here; I think we’ll see some things we can’t see so clearly by merely reading the story. We can use this method as a way of creating some midrash together. No one has to take part in what we’re going to do. What do you say?”  Heads nod, perhaps a little warily in some quarters, but no one objects. “First of all, of course, there’s Rebecca. Is there anyone who would come up here to stand as Rebecca?” Hesitation. People in the group are wondering what will be asked of them. (The mere mention of “up here,” however casual, generates a little anxiety; “up here” becomes the stage.)

   Fairly quickly, curiosity overcomes shyness and  someone volunteers. I place Rebecca in the center of the playing space we are using, in this case the front of a classroom.

   “Her brother, Laban, might be there,” someone says helpfully.

   “Good,” I say, “would you come up and stand as Laban?”

   “I’d rather not.”

   “Fine. No one has to do this. We can put an empty chair for Laban if no one wants to stand here.”

   “I’ll do it,” someone offers. “Where should I stand?”

   “Well, that’s a good question. Suppose you stand as close to Rebecca as you feel close to her, or as far from her as you feel is your emotional distance.” (This is the crucial element in family sculpting, to use distance and position and even posture, as a way of rendering information about the feelings. “Space” becomes psychological and emotional.) The person playing Laban stops for a moment, thinking.

   “If I remember right from later parts of the story, when Jacob comes, Laban is kind of manipulative. And even in this story, he seems sort of calculating. I’m not sure Laban is close to anyone. I think he’d stand a bit off to the side. Like here?” The player is tentative, looks to me as if I had the right answer.

   “That looks good to me. If someone else were playing Laban, they might position him differently, but this is your Laban, distant, on the edge, where you can see everyone, maybe control things.”

   “Right.”

   “Fine,” I say, wanting both to encourage the player to make his choice and to remind the group that we are seeing midrash made concrete in a piece of stage blocking. “Who else might be here?” I ask.

   “Bethuel, their father; is mentioned explicitly.”

   “OK, would you come up and stand where you think Bethuel might be, as close to or as far away from Rebecca as his feelings would place him.” And again the player thinks, talks a little, works it out, asks advice, finds a spot also at a distance from Rebecca and next to Laban. Midrash without words. Someone else might place father closer.  “OK. Who else?”

   “There’s Eliezer, the servant who has come to fetch her.”

   “Do you really think he’d be here, in this scene?” someone asks.

   “I don’t know what do you think.”

   “This is looking pretty intimate, you know.”

   “Doesn’t it depend on when it takes place?” someone asks.

   “How so?”

   “Well, if this Good-Bye takes place in the house, then it might be reserved just for the family, but if Rebecca is outside, say, getting ready to mount a camel, then Eliezer would be there.”

   “On the other hand,” says another student, “Eliezer is there in everyone’s mind. He’s the future. I mean you could have Abraham in this scene, sort of at the edge, a figure from Bethuel’s distant past who is here through Eliezer.”

   “Well,” says another student, “if you think that way you could have Isaac here.”

   “Let’s not get too far afield,” I say, though I like very much this kind of thinking. “Is Eliezer in or out?”
“Let’s put him in, but off to one side.” Someone comes up to be Eliezer. He stands at the edge of the playing space opposite to that occupied by Laban and Bethuel.

   “Who else might be here?” I ask.

   “It says in the text that she left with ‘her maids.’ So I guess there are serving women with her.”

   “Good,” I say, “Let’s have three people come up as the serving maids. If we were going to do this with speaking parts, they might almost be a kind of chorus for this moment.” Three members of the class come up and stand on the “future side” of the playing area, where the servant Eliezer stands. They are ready to go. “Who else?”

   “Well, the text says that Rebecca ‘ran…to her mother’s household,’ but no specific mention is made of her mother.”

   “Yeah,” says another group member, “mothers are often left out of stories.”

   “So,” I ask, “shall we put her in?”

   “Yes,” the group choruses, “let’s put her in.”

   “Would someone volunteer to stand up and position yourself as mother?” A woman stands up and moves onto the stage pensively, looking first at Bethuel then at Rebecca. Her very process of getting into role, of deciding where to stand, is full of midrashic inflection. This moment of leave-taking with her daughter pulls her towards her husband and away from him at the same time. She keeps her own counsel and finally comes to stand very close to Rebecca, and the woman playing Rebecca, who has watched her “mother” enter this scene, spontaneously reaches out her hand.

   “Shall we give you a name?” I ask of the mother.

   “Yes, let’s give her a name,” says someone in the group.

   “OK,” says mother.

   “What is your name,” I ask. “Make it up.”

   “It’s funny but the name ‘Dinah’ popped into my head.”

   “Fine, I say. You are Dinah.” Nice touch, I think.

   “Who else is in this scene?” Silence. “Are we done?” Nods. “OK,” I say, “let yourselves settle for a moment into your parts. Notice how you are feeling about what is happening here, and how are you feeling about other characters in this scene? Who are you farthest away from? Who are you closest to? Look around. And now, only if you want to, I would invite you to say one thing in character.

   “Laban, what do you have to say, either in soliloquy or to someone else?”

   “Can I do both?”
“Sure.”

   “Well, to myself I say, ‘I always expected my sister would marry, but I never imagined she would move away from home. I wonder if I will ever see you again.” To which Rebecca responds with a shrug and lowered eyes. There is a hint of discomfort in her. “Stay in touch…somehow.”

   “Thank you,” I say to this Laban, “and please, if you would, hold that pose until each character has had his or her say. Someone may want to say something to you.” Then turning to the man playing Bethuel, ”Bethuel?”

   “Well, I’m thinking kind of the same thing as Laban. She’s leaving us; she really is leaving. And she is going to marry the son of my uncle. Abraham is my father’s brother. I remember hearing stories about him, Abram then; the one who left us and went off to Canaan . And now, my daughter is leaving. It feels like there is some hidden design here and none of us can see the whole of it. I feel sad. I want to go over and give her a hug. May I?”

   “Sure, then come back here to the place you first chose.” Bethuel does this.

   “Eliezer?”

   “Well, this whole thing has been miraculous. I began this journey simply setting out on an errand for Abraham, but I end it feeling I have had an experience of his God.” He pauses. “I have nothing to say to anyone here, but I am rehearsing what I will say to Abraham when I see him.”

   “And you three handmaidens?”

   “I hope I’ll find a husband where we’re going?”

   “I hope Rebecca packed our little amulets and idols.”

   “I was having a nice little affair with Laban; this really breaks it up.”

   “And Dinah,” I ask, turning to the woman who came up as Rebecca’s mother.

   “I don’t know where to begin. I don’t want to say anything.” But here she puts her arm around her bibliodramatic daughter, and pulls her to her. At first Rebecca seems stiff, but feeling something in Dinah’s hug, she lets herself soften to receive it, and then seems for a moment to be holding her. “In a moment like this, I feel like it was only yesterday that my daughter was born, was a little girl, took her first steps into the world. And now the world has come looking for her.” She pauses, looks down. “I am a woman among men now. I am losing my daughter…and my friend.” 

   Rebecca turns to face her mother. There is a flush in her cheeks. The women look steadily at one another, then embrace.

   “And finally, you, Rebecca. I am sure you have something to say to everyone.” Indeed she does, and the drama begins to unfold spontaneously as a series of dialogues—too lengthy to record here—between her and her family. In the end, however, Rebecca disengages herself from her mother and takes a step away from her. Towards Eliezer and the future. She looks at each person in the scene. Each meets her eye. Then she looks down. She draws a deep breath, then looks up at Eliezer: “Hineni. I’m ready.”

   To conclude the scene I read the blessing the text records:

                  “May you become thousands of myriads;

                   may your offspring gain possession of the gates of their foes.”

For a moment Rebecca looks frightened as if the enormity of this blessing were too much for her young shoulders. Eliezer comes and takes her hand; the maids cluster behind her. Then the little troupe moves off.

   “Well, thank you all, “ I say. “That was well done. Will each of you take a deep breath,“ and they do, “and now will you begin to confuse our tableau, begin to walk, then to mill around.” They do this for a half a minute, “and now if you would each tell the person you meet your real name in real life.”

   “Robert.”

   “Sam.”

   “Ellen.”

   “Rebecca.”

   “No your real name…

   “My real name is Rebecca. It’s why I wanted to play the part.” We all laugh, and in this way the closure is begun.

 

   In the short space of this essay I cannot give anything more than this little sample of how a Bibliodrama goes.[6] However, there are three things to which I would like to call the reader’s attention before I conclude this essay

1.      Bibliodrama, at least as I practice it, is not homiletic. I am interested in opening the text rather than making a lesson from it. The whole question of whether there are right answers or not in the bibliodramatic process is too complicated a question to take up here, but for Christians and Jews  unused to reading the Bible with imagination, unused to midrash or play, the important thing for a director is to make people feel welcomed to the process and validated in their responses.

2.      I seek to be as open as I can to all the responses people give to the story. My role is in part to encourage people to try out their interpretations, in part to be a model of someone who thinks that there are many, perhaps a countless number, of different ways to read and understand biblical stories.

3.      When I work in large groups in churches or in seminaries, I keep the focus on exploring the white fire, the midrash, and not on getting people to talk too much about their personal experiences within the Bibliodrama, There is a time and place for that, but it is usually not within the church service or the classroom.[7]

 

 

Bibliodrama as a Response to the Bible in Crisis

 

   Even from this brief example, I think you can see how Bibliodrama breaks down the barrier between reader and text. It invites a kind of creative participation in the meaning-making process that can lead both to insight into the Bible and into the self. Bibliodrama is also an extraordinary instrument for creating community. As a group process, it allows people to play together in a non-competitive way.[8] The sharing of a biblical story in a Bibliodrama breaks down all kinds of barriers and overcomes all kinds of distance. Old and young, the informed and the uninformed can find in Bibliodrama a real, fresh and non-threatening way to encounter the familiar stories of our sacred tradition.  

   I began this essay with some words from Ezekial, with the question of how shall the “bones” of our old biblical stories be made to live again. I see Bibliodrama as a way to bring stories to life, and I hope the example from Luke  gives the reader some insight into how that process may occur. By stepping into the story with our own voices and selves, we animate the black fire with the white fire of our own imaginations. The biblical words and scenes become containers for our own imaginations. In some way, we breathe life into the words and give them life and are given life in turn by them. We become the vessels and the vehicles for the spirit. With tools like Bibliodrama to bring the bones to life, the Bible, with its immense wisdom, beauty—with its soul—will not lie drying in the desert sun. Its words will be clothed again in white fire, dazzle again, and dance.

 

For a Christian Audience:

 

    I have been invited to demonstrate Bibliodrama to a group of men and women in their last year at Seminary. I introduce myself and then share with the group the story I have chosen. (I choose the story as much as possible to fit the interests of the group I am working with.) This particular story comes at the end of the book of Luke. I make sure we all have the story before us and read the opening of chapter 24 together which tells of the women coming to the tomb in which Jesus had been laid after the crucifixion. They find the stone has been rolled away and that the body is no longer there. Two figures in dazzling clothes appear and remind them of Jesus’ prediction that he would be crucified and then would rise on the third day.

   In this phase of the process—called the ”warm-up”—the group approaches the story as readers. We are not in role yet, but rather look carefully at the text beginning to see it and imagine it together. We identify who the women might be  who come to the tomb—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and ”other women who had come with him from Galilee.” (Luke 23: 55).  We notice first that they see the stone is not in the position they left it in; next they “enter;” and do not find the body; third they find two figures in “dazzling clothes” beside them. We notice the movement from “perplexity” to “terror,” from standing to bowing; from being alone to being visited by angelic apparitions. All this helps us to warm up the imagination, to see the black fire more clearly and to begin to notice the white fire also.

   Then as director, I invite the group to step into roles. “Now,” I say, ”let’s see what happens when we play the next part of this story out in a bibliodramatic way. And let me assure you that you do not have to participate. It is fine simply to watch. OK?”

   Members of the group nod. They understand they are free to be witnesses and do not have to be active participants. The “warm-up” phase is over. Now we begin the “action” phase. 

   I address the group: “Let’s put the text aside so we can be free to listen and imagine together.” Books and papers are put away. “It says in verse 9 that  the women ‘returned from the tomb, and told all this to the eleven and the rest.’ Let’s begin with the return. You,” and here I point to the group before me, “you are all women returning from the tomb. You may want to say your name; you may not. Tell me, What do you feel?”

  A hand is raised.

   “Yes,” I say. “Who are you?”

   “I am one of the women. I have seen a miracle. The body was not there and two angels told us that Jesus is risen.”

   “So you feel…?”

   “I feel like it is all true. That he is who we thought he was.”

   Another hand is raised.” Yes?”

   “I am Mary Magdalene.”
“Yes, what do you have to tell us Mary.”

   “It took me a long time to be accepted into this company of women. At first they looked down on me, but now my name is mentioned first. I was in the lead going there, and I am now as we return.”

  “And where are you leading these women?” I ask.

  ”Well, we have to tell everyone that Jesus is not dead. That he is risen.”

  “Will they listen?”

  “If it was only me, they would not. But it is all of us. We all saw; we all felt.”

  “May I speak?” another hand is raised.

  “Yes, of course, who are you?”

   “Can I also be Mary Magdalene?”

   “Yes.”

   “I am actually feeling afraid.”

   “And why is that?” I ask.

   “Because, it is not over.”

   “Not over?”

   “Right; it is not over. It has been a very exciting, very important time to be with him. But he is a dangerous man, and his way of challenging authority in the end brought him to his death. When he died, I was very sad, but I also must confess that I was relieved, because I did not want to end up as he did. Now…well, where is he? What does he want? It is not over, and I feel more than ever that I will be—we all will be—tried and tested even more.”

   “Thank you, “ I say, “you have given us a glimpse of a very real and human Mary.”

   “May I speak? I am the mother of James. And I want to say that what Mary Magdalene says is true for me also. I am the only mother here. My son was—is—a disciple, a follower of Jesus. I have been concerned for him. I left my husband at home to be with my son. Jesus said that he came with ‘a sword.’ It is true. My family was divided. I fear for my son. It is difficult and dangerous to be so different. Every mother wants her son to be safe.”

   “I am Joanna and I don’t know very much about my story, but I tell you I feel honored to have been here and part of this gathering. So much attention is given to the men, the apostles, to their mission. I like that we women are here, some of us named, others not. We are a sisterhood. We have been the first to see. We will be the first to tell. If there is a mission to come, I am ready for it. I want to dance with my sisters and to sing with them.”

   “And you also understand the other feelings your sisters have?”

   “Yes, of course. Who knows what is coming? But it is a great honor to have been here and to have seen the miracle of his resurrection.”

   “Is there anyone else who wants to speak, “I ask.

   “Yes. It is not important who I am or what my name is. I have been on a long journey since Jesus first came to Galilee . I have followed him. I have loved him. I have listened to him. I have learned from him. He was always to me a great healer and teacher, but always he was a man, even though he was a man of amazing powers. But this…this…is something I cannot understand or explain. I feel not just scared but a little sick, disoriented. Now I am being asked to believe in something beyond the human, and even though I was there and saw the tomb was empty, and saw the men in dazzling clothes, I was not ready to believe. I am not, in all honesty, ready to believe. I want to go home.”

    So the Bibliodrama begins and it will go on.  Other women will speak. Then the scene will shift to their encounter with the apostles who “did not believe them,” and at last the focus on Peter, who runs alone to the tomb, looks in and goes “home amazed.” (24:12) Perhaps our drama will end with members of the group taking his role and understanding what this event has meant to him.

In the short space of this essay I cannot give anything more than this little sample of how a Bibliodrama goes.[9] However, there are three things to which I would like to call the reader’s attention before I conclude this essay

1.      Bibliodrama, at least as I practice it, is not homiletic. I am interested in opening the text rather than making a lesson from it. The whole question of whether there are right answers or not in the bibliodramatic process is too complicated a question to take up here, but for Christians unused to reading the Bible with imagination, unused to midrash or play, the important thing for a director is to make people feel welcomed to the process and validated in their responses.

2.      I seek to be as open as I can to all the responses people give to the story. My role is in part to encourage people to try out their interpretations, in part to be a model of someone who thinks that there are many, perhaps a countless number, of different ways to read and understand biblical stories.

3.      When I work in large groups in churches or in seminaries, I keep the focus on exploring the white fire, the midrash, and not on getting people to talk too much about their personal experiences within the Bibliodrama, There is a time and place for that, but it is usually not within the church service or the classroom.

 

Bibliodrama as a Response to the Bible in Crisis 

     Even from this brief example, I think you can see how Bibliodrama breaks down the barrier between reader and text. It invites a kind of creative participation in the meaning-making process that can lead both to insight into the Bible and into the self. Bibliodrama is also an extraordinary instrument for creating community. As a group process, it allows people to play together in a non-competitive way.[10] The sharing of a biblical story in a Bibliodrama breaks down all kinds of barriers and overcomes all kinds of distance. Old and young, the informed and the uninformed can find in Bibliodrama a real, fresh and non-threatening way to encounter the familiar stories of our sacred tradition.  

   I began this essay with some words from Ezekial, with the question of how shall the “bones” of our old biblical stories be made to live again. I see Bibliodrama as a way to bring stories to life, and I hope the example from Luke  gives the reader some insight into how that process may occur. By stepping into the story with our own voices and selves, we animate the black fire with the white fire of our own imaginations. The biblical words and scenes become containers for our own imaginations. In some way, we breathe life into the words and give them life and are given life in turn by them. We become the vessels and the vehicles for the spirit. With tools like Bibliodrama to bring the bones to life, the Bible, with its immense wisdom, beauty—with its soul—will not lie drying in the desert sun. Its words will be clothed again in white fire, dazzle again, and dance.

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