9. The Bible in politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 104-114
Author(s):  
John Riches
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
Clear Line

‘The Bible in politics’ examines the place of the Bible in politics. Martin Luther and the mainstream Reformers used it to justify the power of the sword and to draw a clear line between the laws which were to govern secular society and the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, which was intended only for Christians. The Quakers in England, like the Anabaptists, interpreted the commandments of the Sermon of the Mount literally and so refused to bear arms or to swear oaths. It is worth considering how the Bible has been a major source of the patriarchy which has marked Christian societies and exploring some feminist critiques of biblical narratives.

scholarly journals PERBANDINGAN LUTHER DAN CALVIN DALAM PENAFSIRAN TERHADAP KHOTBAH DI BUKIT

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-238
Author(s):  
Joshua Timothy Siwalette
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
John Calvin ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Law And Gospel

The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most famous passages in the Bible, but unfortunately it has a polemic interpretation in the reformed circles. This article analyzes two interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount from two well-known reformed figures, John Calvin and Martin Luther, to discover the heart of the problem. This article shows that Calvin's interpretation is more responsible than Luther's, but there is a beautiful legitimate application that readers can learn from Luther. Keywords: Interpretation, Sermon on the Mount, John Calvin, Martin Luther, historical criticism, law and gospel.

Global Thefts of Biblical Narrative

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald West
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Family Resemblances ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
The Subject

This chapter takes its starting point from the African experience, across a range of African contexts, of Africa as both the subject and object of biblical narrative. When the Bible came to Africa, it came with well-established colonial metanarratives, constructed in part from biblical narratives. These colonial metanarratives were in turn partly reconstructed by the engagement with African others, from both a European and an African perspective along two diverging trajectories, with biblical narrative making a contribution to both. This chapter focuses on the capacity of biblical narrative, biblical story, to be both incorporated into “local” metanarratives and to shape these metanarratives. The contexts that are the focus of this chapter are largely “third world” contexts, across which there are significant family resemblances and important contextual differences.

scholarly journals "Die Sprache ist eine große und göttliche Gabe" (Martin Luther) Reformation und Sprachkultur

Labyrinth ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Susanne Heine
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
Personal Relationship ◽  
Human Being ◽  
German Translation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Capability ◽  
The Relationship

"Language is a great and divine gift" (Martin Luther)Reformation and Language Culture  In this paper Luther's anthropology is shown as being based on the human capability of speaking. As a speaking person, the human being is not outside the world but involved in the world by communication. For Luther being human means – thanks to the capability of speaking – being in a personal relationship. The author argues that this relationship to others is based in the relationship to God. Although speaking is a gift of God, it can be abused whenever someone stirs up people to degrade others, as populists do. Luther had been reproached to be a populist in his closeness to simple people, but this was only due to his intention, that everyone should understand his translation of the bible. Instead of stoking fears, as populists do, Luther helped people to overcome their fears, by telling them in their own language – due to his German translation – that God loves them.  

The Southern Levant and the Ancient Near Eastern Canon

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Rachel Hallote
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth

When the artistic canon of the Southern Levant coalesced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars thought of the region, then Ottoman Palestine, as the locus of the Bible. The small-scale nature of the archaeological finds as well as their relative dearth reinforced a reliance on biblical narratives as a framework for understanding the culture of the region. Moreover, early scholarship did not recognize the complex regionalism of the Southern Levant or the diversity of its populations. Consequently, the artistic canon that developed did not represent the historical and archaeological realities of the region. This chapter examines the history of how the artistic canon of the Southern Levant formed over the past century of scholarship, why various scholars of the early and middle twentieth century included particular items in the canon, and why these now entrenched representations may or may not be helpful to the discipline’s future.

A (Multi-) Story-formed Community: The Bible and Politics at Ebenezer Baptist Church

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristopher Norris ◽  
Sam Speers
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Baptist Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Martin Luther King

This article analyzes the ways multiple formative narratives interact to shape the identity and political practices of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, home of Martin Luther King. We argue that the two key narratives of gospel story in scripture and the church’s particular civil rights legacy form the identity and practice of this community in complicated ways: sometimes they are synthesized, sometimes one narrative is temporally merged into the other, and sometimes they operate as competing narratives, generating a tension. We offer three anecdotes from our original research that illustrate the relationship between these narratives and demonstrate that Ebenezer is a community whose identity and political practices are formed by the overlap and interplay of multiple narratives.

Behind Auerbach's “Background”: Five Ways to Read What Biblical Narratives Don't Say

AJS Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-150
Author(s):  
James Adam Redfield
Keyword(s):  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Biblical Narratives ◽  
Contemporary Work

The Hebrew Bible's narrative style has impressed interpreters of many periods and perspectives with its powerful tension between fragmentary speech and meaningful silence, summed up in Erich Auerbach's famous thesis that the Akedah is “fraught with background.” But is it possible to give a coherent account of what the Bible does not say? This article offers a comparative critical analysis of attempts to do just that, starting with Auerbach's Mimesis (1946) and continuing through the contemporary work of James Kugel, Robert Alter, Meir Sternberg, Avivah Zornberg, and others. It claims that, rather than the text itself, the Bible's “background” serves as a metaphor by which the biblical critic navigates a complex relationship with her own normative construct of the reader's mind. This comparison concludes with practical considerations about its potential for research and teaching in biblical poetics, understood as rigorous intersubjective communication, rather than as either method or ideology.

Martin Luther, Bible Translation, and the German Language

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
German Language ◽  
Linguistic Terms ◽  
Important Work ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
History Of ◽  
General Work

In the history of the German language, hardly any other author’s linguistic work is as closely associated with the German language as Martin Luther’s. From the start, Luther as a linguistic event became the embodiment of German culture and was even elevated as the birth of the language itself; his style was emulated by some, scorned by others. Luther forces one to take a position, even on linguistic terms. The Bible is at the heart of the argument, being the most important work of Luther’s translation. However, it is only one particular type of text in the general work of the reformer. The role that the Bible plays both on its own and in connection with Luther’s other works, as well as the traditions Luther drew on and the way he worked with language, will be examined within the matrix of Early New High German, with all its peculiarities.

Invective and Discernment in Martin Luther, D. Erasmus, and Thomas More

2005 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 469-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance M. Furey
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Desiderius Erasmus ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
The Real ◽  
Modern Reader ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
Lord Chancellor ◽  
The Church

The scathing insults that fill texts by sixteenth-century Christian reformers can shock even a jaded modern reader. In the prefatory letter to the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520), for example, Martin Luther begins by wishing for “grace and peace in Christ” before launching his attack on the “brainless and illiterate beast in papist form” and its “whole filthy pack of … asses,” and concludes by exhorting his reader to rise up against the Catholic hierarchy: “Continue courageously, noble sir; in this way the disgrace of the Bohemian name will be abolished, and the sludge of the harlot's lies and whoring shall again be taken up in her breast.” Or consider the nasty invectives by the English Lord Chancellor and future Catholic martyr, Thomas More, against not only Luther but also Matthew Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English. More calls these men the “devil's disciples”: Luther “a pimp, an apostate, a rustic, and a friar”; and Tyndale “a babbler, and a devil's ape.” Even Desiderius Erasmus, the erudite Catholic humanist, filled his writings with insults both satirical and blunt and proclaimed that theologians “are more stupid than any pig” (sue stupidiores). Fierce words commonly appear in the midst of religious controversies, and one may choose to skim past this hyperbolic outrage in search of the real message. Insulting rhetoric, however, does provide a sensitive barometer of religious concerns in the sixteenth century and yields unexpectedly complex answers to a simple question. What does negative speech accomplish?

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