Reading the Bible in Australia

Reading the Bible in Australia invites reflection about how the Bible matters to Australia. Contributors probe intersections between vital debates about Australian identity (who we have been, are, and aspire to become) and the Bible, bringing a range of perspectives to critical themes—indigeneity, colonization, and migration; landscape, biodiversity, and climate; gender and marginality; economics, ideology, and rhetoric. Each chapter explores the past and present influence of a biblical text or theme. Some offer fresh contextually and ethically informed readings. All interrogate the wider outcomes of reading the Bible in different ways. Given the tragic consequences of how it has been used historically, and sometimes still is, some Australians would exclude the Bible and its interpreters from public debate. Yet, as Meredith Lake’s The Bible in Australia demonstrates, “a degree of biblical literacy—along with critical skill in evaluating how the Bible has been taken up and interpreted in our history—can only help Australians grapple well with the choices Australia faces.” Love it or hate it, there is no getting around the reality that the Bible, and how it is read, still matters.

Deborah R. Storie is senior pastor at East Doncaster Baptist Church and lecturer in New Testament with the University of Divinity. She seeks to read and respond to the Bible in ways that build peace and promote ecological, social, and economic justice.


Barbara Deutschmann is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Divinity in Melbourne. Her interests include gender in the Hebrew Bible and early Australian feminism, and she is the author of Creating Gender in the Garden (2022).


Michelle Eastwood is director of research at Australian Lutheran College. Her research interests include gender and sexuality, Hebrew Bible, and worship and liturgy. She has degrees in psychology, history, education, and theology, and enjoys working at the intersections of these areas of interest.