Philip Melanchthon

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Kolb
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Public Career

While a student at the Universities of Heidelberg and Tübingen, Philip Melanchthon (b. 1497–d. 1560) had won recognition for his abilities as a promulgator of the reforms of the biblical humanistic movement. That reputation propelled him into a professorship at the infant University of Wittenberg in 1518. His primary assignment was to teach Greek and other courses in the Arts faculty, but in 1519 he received the first theology degree, which expanded his responsibilities to include lecturing on the Bible. As a key member of that university, he taught theology and also lectured on several texts and topics in the liberal arts (including Aristotle’s De anima), which continued until his death in 1560. His contributions to the liberal arts, especially in rhetoric and dialectic, but also in refining methods of text analysis and teaching in all branches of learning, were more than equaled by his achievements in biblical interpretation and in the formulation of the dogmatic system that prepared his students for preaching and teaching the faith through the topical method of organizing knowledge of scripture and the Christian tradition. He composed The Augsburg Confession, The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, and The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, which became part of the secondary authority for public teaching in the Lutheran churches. He also served as an ecclesiastical diplomat and counselor on public policy for the electors of Saxony and for the Smalcald League. His later years were marred by criticism from former students, including those to whom he had been very close, whom he disappointed by working with Moritz of Saxony, who had aided the Habsburgs in the defeat of Melanchthon’s former elector, Johann Friedrich, in the Smalcald War (1546–1547). They felt betrayed by his involvement in formulating a compromise policy that was intended to simulate electoral Saxon compliance with imperial commands to return to submission to the papacy while preserving what Luther and Melanchthon had taught in the 1520s, 1530s, and 1540s. His disputed reputation perhaps contributed to the relative dearth of larger scholarly studies of his thought or his multifaceted public career. Much of the scholarship published in what might be called a modest “Melanchthon Renaissance” of the last half century has taken form in essays rather than books, as this bibliography indicates.

The Liberal Arts, Language and Transcendence

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-67
Author(s):  
Gilbert R. Prost ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Traditional Function ◽  
Conceptual Shift ◽  
The University

The traditional function of the Liberal Arts, in contrast to courses in science, was to help students learn how to live meaningful lives. This meant that theology and the study of the Bible as Revelation were a crucial peart of the curriculum. Yet, since the Enlightenment, marked by the rejection of Revelation, the university has depended on reason alone for answering the question: How should I live? But this conceptual shift from Revelation and reason to positivistic reason had some serious consequences, especially a failure to address the innate semantic category of the transcendent-self or Thou. The existential questions still remain: (1) can man be reduced to a kind of animal; and (2) can the arts be reduced to science? Language, semantic primes, and the presence of dual organizational social structures all give supporting evidence that human existence has a superordinate-subordinate ordering, and that such reductionism is impossible. But philosophical Naturalism, in the name of science, has not only dethroned man from his place over nature, but also the liberal arts from their superordinate role over science. If the university is to become relevant in the lives of students again, then it is imperative that both the arts and man be restored to their rightful place. We can begin by restoring the "Bible as Revelation" to the curriculum.

Hugh of St. Victor's De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris as an Accessus Treatise for the Study of the Bible

Traditio ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 111-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grover A. Zinn
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Arts Curriculum ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Biblical Commentaries

The first half of the twelfth century was, by any account, a remarkable time in the intellectual history of the medieval West. During this period the development and expansion of schools located in urban centers took place at an accelerating pace. Within these schools, masters forged new tools for organizing, analyzing, and presenting materials for their students. Not only was the rich harvest gleaned from the writings of authorities from past centuries subjected to a more organized sifting and evaluation; the results of contemporary intellectual debate were incorporated into texts that made their way into the curricula of the schools. One can see the effects of this sifting, organizing, discussing, and presenting in a wide variety of works from the half-century: the theological sententiae from the “school” of Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, the accessus ad auctores literature in the arts curriculum, the Sic et non of Abelard, collections of canon law, and glossed Bibles and biblical commentaries. Although the contents of these works are quite diverse, in general they were produced within a common cultural situation: the medieval school.

Lovis Corinth's Blinded Samson

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 410-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Cheryl Exum
Keyword(s):  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Autobiographical Work ◽  
Do So

AbstractIn this article, I discuss how Lovis Corinth's painting of The Blinded Samson-a highly autobiographical work-led me to see a tragic aspect of the biblical character that I was previously unable to entertain seriously. The discussion is intended to provide an example of the fruitfulness of allowing for a mutual influence between the Bible and the arts. The Bible has inspired artists for centuries and will probably continue to do so; it is also the case that artistic interpretations can influence biblical interpretation in unexpected ways.

Humanist Lawyer, Public Career: Thomas More and Conscience

Moreana ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (Number 176) (1) ◽  
pp. 77-96
Author(s):  
Travis Curtright
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Thomas More ◽  
Fundamental Nature ◽  
Rhetorical Studies ◽  
The Law ◽  
Public Career

Because Thomas More did not introduce grand programs of Utopian policy through new legislation, or modify the fundamental nature of British law with principles of humanist jurisprudence, most scholars regard More as a follower of Cardinal Wolsey’s legal innovations and not much of a reformer himself. This essay will challenge that perception, presenting More as a humanist reformer by examining the importance of equity to humanist legal and rhetorical studies and by showing how More viewed the law as part of the liberal arts.

Biblical Interpretation in the Majority World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. K. Yeo
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
National Identities ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Majority World ◽  
Multiple Contexts ◽  
Spirit World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Bible Reading

This chapter challenges the ‘received’ view that traces the expansion of the dominant theologies of the European and North American colonial powers and their missionaries into the Majority World. When they arrived, these Westerners found ancient Christian traditions and pre-existing spiritualities, linguistic and cultural forms, which questioned their Eurocentric presumptions, and energized new approaches to interpreting the sacred texts of Christianity. The emergence of ‘creative tensions’ in global encounters are a mechanism for expressing (D)issent against attempts to close down or normalize local Bible-reading traditions. This chapter points to the elements which establish a creative tension between indigenizing Majority World approaches to the Bible and those described in the ‘orthodox’ narrative, including: self-theologizing and communal readings; concepts of the Spirit world and human flourishing; the impact of multiple contexts, vernacular languages, sociopolitical and ethno-national identities, and power/marginalization structures; and ‘framing’ public and ecological issues.

The Bible in the Twentieth-Century Anglophone World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
Anglophone World

This chapter looks at the tensions between biblical interpretation and the political, social, and cultural context of dissenting Protestant churches in the twentieth century. It notes that even a fundamental category, such as the ‘inspiration’ of Scripture, shifted across time as the nature of public debates, social and economic structures, and Western definitions of public knowledge shifted. The chapter progresses by looking at a number of examples of key figures (R. J. Campbell, Harry Emerson Fosdick, H. G. Guinness, R. A. Torrey, and R. G. McIntyre among them) who interpreted the Bible for public comment, and their relative positions as the century progressed. Popularization of biblical interpretation along the lines of old, new, and contemporary dissent, is explored through the careers of three near contemporaries: Charles Bradley ‘Chuck’ Templeton (b. 1915, Toronto, Canada), William Franklin ‘Billy’ Graham, Jr (b. 1918, North Carolina), and Oral Roberts (b. 1918, Oklahoma).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christian Humanism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Christian Humanism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Theological Politics

Based on a comprehensive reading of his entire work, in this book Jens Zimmermann presents Bonhoeffer’s theological ethos as a Christian humanism, that is, as an understanding of the gospel rooted in apostolic and patristic writers who believed God to have renewed humanity in the incarnation. The heartbeat of Bonhoeffer’s Christianity that unifies and motivates his theological writing, his preaching, and his political convictions, including his opposition to the Nazi regime, is the conviction that Christianity as participation in the new humanity established by Christ is about becoming fully human by becoming Christlike. In eight chapters, the author details Bonhoeffer’s humanistic theology following from this incarnational starting point: a Christ-centered anthropology that shows a deep kinship with patristic Christology, a hermeneutically structured theology, an ethic focused on Christ-formation, a biblical hermeneutic centered on God’s transforming presence, and a theological politics aimed at human flourishing. In offering a comprehensive reading of his theology as Christian humanism, Zimmermann not only places Bonhoeffer in the context of the patristic and greater Christian tradition but also makes apparent the relevance of Bonhoeffer’s thought for a number of contemporary concerns: hermeneutic theory, the theological interpretation of the Bible, the relation of reason to faith, the importance of natural law, and the significance of religion for secular societies. Bonhoeffer turns out to be a Christian humanist and a modern theologian who models the deeply orthodox and yet ecumenical, expansive Christianity demanded by our time.

Ritualizing Iconic Jewish Texts

2020 ◽  
pp. 239-255
Author(s):  
James W. Watts
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Worship ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Bibles and parts of bibles are themselves used as ritual objects in Jewish and Christian worship. Their display and manipulation, oral performance, and semantic interpretation have been ritualized by synagogues and churches since antiquity. The origins of these practices are rooted in the Bible itself. Their influence has shaped every Jewish and Christian tradition and reaches beyond them to Muslims, Manicheans, and other religious communities. This chapter and its companions in this volume on Christianity and Islam focus mostly on how the iconic dimension of scriptures gets ritualized, because the iconic dimension has received less scholarly attention than the ritualization of scripture’s oral performance, artistic illustration, and semantic interpretation.

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.

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