In December 1992, my beautiful wife (then my main squeeze- well, only squeeze), took me along to a Christian camp called Manuscript Discovery. I have been going to the camp each year ever since.

Manuscript Discovery is both a camp, which has now been running anually for over 20 years in Sydney, and also a method of studying the bible. The camp, obviously, combines both of these.

Each year, about 20-30 people get together for 10 days to study a book of the bible in a "manuscript" format. There are no studies, no talks, no pre-set questions and answers. In small groups, everyone reads the text with the aim of trying to discover what the author was trying to say to the original recipients. The groups go through reading the text and talking about their first impressions, then questions (no answers yet though...), then a look at structure, and finally looking at individual themes that flow throughout the whole book. After studying the book like this in small groups for 4-5 hours each day- everyone comes away with a much deeper understanding of the text- and certainly a lot of things that make us go "Hmmm..."!

Last modified on Wednesday, July 01, 1998