Reading in Place: Ellen Davis’s Agrarian Reading of the Bible
Zoom or in person
Cost: $40
Participant limit: 15
“If you listen willingly, the good of the land you shall eat.” (Isaiah 1:19)
Acclaimed theologian Dr. Ellen Davis opens her agrarian reading of the Old Testament with these words. It is but one of the many biblical scriptures about farming that Davis calls on to show how “the message of the earliest prophetic writers of the Bible was distinctly ‘agrarian’” (120).
Davis, a Duke Divinity School Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, delivered The Berry Center’s annual Wendell Berry Lecture on Thursday, September 10, 2026 in New Castle, Kentucky. Ahead of the lecture, this study was offered as an inviation to study selections from her important book Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture (2009). As Wendell Berry wrote in the Foreword, “This book will be welcomed gladly by readers interested in the Bible’s sense of our economic life and our ecological responsibilities. Reading it is a pleasure and a help.”
Two Henry County neighbors lead the discussion: Dr. John Inscore Essick, co-Pastor of the Port Royal Baptist Church and Professor of Church History and Director of the Rural Ministry Program at BSK Theological Seminary, and Dr. Leah Bayens, Director of The Berry Center’s Farm and Forest Institute.
Current Offerings
This workshop may be returning. Join our mailing list to be notified of new dates.
*Reduced-rate scholarships are available for farmers and residents of Henry County.
via Zoom or In-person
$50
Limit 15 participants
