Nature and Scripture: Demise of a Medieval Analogy

1995 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willemien Otten
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Thought

Throughout the history of Christian thought the theological role of scripture as source of transcendent meaning has exercised considerable influence on the art and manner of biblical interpretation. In the early church the problems revolved mostly around the canon, specifically although not exclusively the New Testament, as defining the confines of scripture. The question arose, therefore, which biblical writings were divinely inspired and which were of doubtful origin. The latter were unacceptable for the Christian communities that had broken away from their ancestral Judaic religion. Even before the canon was fixed, however, the problems shifted from the divinely inspired composition of the Bible to its intrinsic signification; interpreters saw scriptural language itself as infused with theological content. As exegetical positions led to the development of credal statements that solidified into theological dogma, the early church established a link between biblical interpretation and sound doctrine. By enforcing sanctioned interpretations through effective excommunication, an ever more powerful church sealed the dominance of orthodoxy over heresy with the nearly divine force of ecclesiastical authority. In the church-dominated culture of the Middle Ages, the adequacy of scriptural interpretation—its method, its content, the credentials of its practitioners—often depended on its conformity with an expanding theological tradition.

scholarly journals Reading the Bible through the ages?Historical and hermeneutical perspectives

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirkie Smit
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
History Of ◽  
Impossible Task ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
The Middle Ages

In this contribution the seemingly straightforward slogan espoused by Biblica, namely, “Transforming lives through God’s Word” is complicated by placing it within the context of the rich, multi-layered and complex history of Bible-reading. Fully aware that it is an impossible task to construe the history of the reading of the Bible, offers a few broad strokes describing Biblical reception and interpretation, beginning with the complex genesis of the Bible, extending through the Early Church, the Middle Ages, The Renaissance and Reformation, the time of Enlightenment and rise of Modernity, the emergence of ecumenical hermeneutics in the 20th century, and the contemporary conflicts in hermeneutic perspectives. Throughout the essay, the question is asked – in various ways and with different responses – what “Transforming lives through God’s Word” could mean.

scholarly journals VII.—Lessing's Religious Development with Special Reference to His Nathan the Wise

PMLA ◽  
1893 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-379
Author(s):  
Sylvester Primer
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church

The primitive purity of the early Church soon yielded to a Church hierarchy. In those early times, before the New Testament was admitted to equal canonical authority with the Old, the Church became the supreme authority and the Bible was subordinate. After the incorporation of the New Testament into the Bible, the Scriptures and the Church appear to be coördinate authority in the patristic writings of that period. During the Middle Ages the Church grew rapidly in political power and the influence of the Scriptures waned accordingly, so that Dante complains of the way in which not merely creeds and fathers but canon law and the decretals were studied instead of the gospels.

scholarly journals Why Was the New Testament Translated into Hebrew?

Open Theology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eran Shuali
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
New Testament ◽  
The State ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
Hebrew Language ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
The Middle Ages

AbstractAfter offering a short overview of the history of Hebrew translations of the New Testament from the Middle Ages to our time, this article focuses on the purposes of the different translations as reflected in what has been written and said about them by the translators themselves and by other people involved in their dissemination. Five such purposes are identified: 1. Jewish polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages. 2. Christian study of the Hebrew language. 3. The quest for the Hebrew “original” of the New Testament. 4. The mission to the Jews. 5. The needs of the Christian communities in the State of Israel. Concluding remarks are then made regarding the way in which Hebrew translations of the New Testament were perceived throughout the ages and regarding the role they played.

Martin Luther’s Biblical Commentary: New Testament

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik H. Herrmann
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Commentary ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of Exegesis ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of

Martin Luther’s exposition of the Bible was not only fundamental to his academic vocation, it also stood at the very center of his reforming work. Through his interpretation of the New Testament, Luther came to new understanding of the gospel, expressed most directly in the apostle Paul’s teaching on justification. Considering the historical complexities of Luther’s own recollections on the matter, it is quite clear that he regarded his time immersed in the writings of Paul as the turning point for his theology and his approach to the entire Scriptures (cf. LW 34:336f). Furthermore, Luther’s interpretation of the New Testament was imbued with such force that it would influence the entire subsequent history of exegesis: colleagues, students, rivals, and opponents all had to reckon with it. However, as a professor, Luther’s exegetical lectures and commentaries were more often concerned with the Old Testament. Most of Luther’s New Testament interpretation is found in his preaching, which, following the lectionary, usually considered a text from one of the Gospels or Epistles. His reforms of worship in Wittenberg also called for weekly serial preaching on Matthew and John for the instruction of the people. From these texts, we have some of the richest sustained reflections on the Gospels in the 16th century. Not only was the substance of his interpretation influential, Luther’s contribution to exegetical method and the hermeneutical problem also opened new possibilities for biblical interpretation that would resonate with both Christian piety and critical, early modern scholarship.

scholarly journals Does the Lord Speak with a Forked Tongue? Solutions for Unity in a Diverse Biblical Corpus

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Fitzroy
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Task Set ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Scholar ◽  
History Of Biblical Interpretation

Does the Bible present a unified message from God to humanity? This paper is an attempt to undertake the task set forth by biblical scholar G. Ernest Wright, who said: “The question of the unity of the Bible’s message is one that will never be satisfactorily solved, though it is one which every generation of Christians must seek to solve.” This investigation, while framed as a “personal attempt,” looks at the biblical-theological issue of unity and diversity within the Bible to try to form some theologically synthetic answer to the above question. This investigation dialogues with the history of biblical interpretation by first looking at issues related to diversity in the New Testament (“Micro-diversity”) and then to the Bible as a whole (“Macrodiversity”) to see if we can understand a “whole Bible biblical Theology.” Finally, this paper explores some of the implications of the answers to these questions for the modern Christians.

The Making of the Medieval Middle East

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Tannous
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. This book argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, the book provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. The book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.

Postcolonial Liberation: Decolonizing Biblical Studies in the South African Postcolony

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald O. West
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
The South ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
African Black ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Economics ◽  
The 1960S

Liberation biblical interpretation and postcolonial biblical interpretation have a long history of mutual constitution. This essay analyzes a particular context in which these discourses and their praxis have forged a third conversation partner: decolonial biblical interpretation. African and specifically South African biblical hermeneutics are the focus of reflections in this essay. The South African postcolony is a “special type” of postcolony, as the South African Communist Party argued in the 1960s. The essay charts the characteristics of the South African postcolony and locates decolonial biblical interpretation within the intersections of these features. Race, culture, land, economics, and the Bible are forged in new ways by contemporary social movements, such as #FeesMustFall. South African biblical studies continues to draw deeply on the legacy of South African black theology, thus reimagining African biblical studies as decolonial African biblical studies—a hybrid of African liberation and African postcolonial biblical interpretation.

Terms of Scriptural Interpretation: A Study in Hebrew Semantics

1962 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Gertner
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Behaviour ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
Divine Wisdom ◽  
The Subject

In the last centuries before the current era and in the early centuries after its beginning the major intellectual and literary activity in the realms (first) of the Jewish and (later) of the Christian communities was wholly centred in the field of interpretation. The OT, as the mainspring and foundation of all religious thought and teaching in those days and in those spheres, was the subject of this interpretation activity. In both the Jewish and the Christian world the Bible was considered to be not only holy and authoritative, but also, and this is in our context more important, the only and exclusive source of divine religious doctrine and of good ethical behaviour. Also historical events, political or religious, were seen, even foreseen, and evaluated from the aspect of this holy source of divine wisdom and planning.

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