Its been a century since the Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome has been teaching the Bible. It was founded in 1909 by Pope Pius X and handed to the Society of Jesus due to their intellectual apostolate.
As they prepare to celebrate their 100th anniversary, their main objective remains teaching the Bible, but most importantly what it represents.

Rev. Stephen Pisano, Vice Rector, Pontifical Biblical Institute: Frequently religions are spoken of as religions of the Book. For us, our religion is not the religion of a book its a religion of a person , the person of Jesus Christ. The Jesuit institute trains scholars and seminarian professors. It focuses on ancient languages and biblical research.

Pisano: The faculty of ancient near eastern studies is one of the leading faculties of studies of Acadian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Coptic all of these ancient cultures, which are extremely important. On the one hand for coming to know the world from which the Bible emerged but then on the other hand also just studying these ancient cultures for themselves as well.

The Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome educate students from all over the world, who later return to their countries as teachers and preachers of the Bible.

Pisano: When we talk about studying the Bible either from the historical critical point of view or the theological point of view, its important to remember that the end result should be that this deepens the faith of the people who read the Bible.

As part of the 100th anniversary celebration the Institute plans to host the 2009 International Meeting for the Society of Biblical Literature, the oldest and largest organization in the field of Biblical studies.