Includes bibliographical references.

Editorial: The Bible as cultural heritage / Wim Beuken, Sean Freyne -- I. From world to scroll: the Bible and its cultures. 'From the midst of the nations' : the Bible as gateway to ancient Near Eastern cultures / Othmar Keel -- Jews and Greeks : the Diaspora as an experience of cultural diversification / Jacques van Ruiten -- 'Telling in their own tongues' : old and modern Bible translations as expressions of ethnic cultural identity / Willard G. Oxtoby -- 'Neither Jew nor Greek' : the challenge of building one multicultural religious community / John K. Riches. II. From scroll to world: the Bible and the making of culture. The Bible in arts and literature : source of inspiration for poets and painters / David Jasper -- The Bible and the discovery of the world : mission, colonization and foreign development / Arnulf Camps. III. From scroll to book of life: the Bible as source of human values. New ways of reading the Bible in the cultural settings of the New World / Jean-Pierre Ruiz -- The Bible as magna carta of movements for liberation and human rights / George M. Soares-Prabhu -- The Bible and the preservation of the world / Norman Solomon -- 'Behold I make all things new' : the final statement of the fourth plenary assembly of the Catholic Biblical Federation / Teresa Okure. Special column: The active participation of the church of Zaire in building a responsible nation / Emery Kabongo Kanundowi.