The Perennial Bestseller

2021 ◽  
pp. 208-217
Author(s):  
Kristin Swenson
Keyword(s):  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Bible

This chapter presents the ways the Bible has permeated modern culture, especially outside of predictable settings such as synagogues and churches. From characters and poems to sayings and storylines, the Bible provides an astonishing number of expressions, practices, and tropes that still resonate today. The chapter discusses a mere fraction of biblical phrases and imagery that have found their way into modern discourse, making familiar what nevertheless bears surprising peculiarities. Individual characters and stories also show up in reimaginings that are sometimes quite rich and provocative. It is not always necessary to know their biblical origins to appreciate modern usage, but the value of knowing about the Bible, regardless of what one believes, can be a safeguard against the kinds of misuse that cause discord and outright damage.

The Fundamentalist Menace

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-254
Author(s):  
George M. Marsden
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Scopes Trial ◽  
The Bible ◽  
William Jennings Bryan ◽  
The University

Nothing did more to strengthen determination for academic freedom than the fundamentalist attacks of the 1920s. In opposition to Darwinian evolution, fundamentalists found an issue that combined their alarm over the secular direction of modern culture, their reverence for the Bible, and populist appeals. William Jennings Bryan was especially effective in promoting these concerns. A number of states, especially in the South, adopted legislation banning teaching of evolution in schools. States became focal points for controversy. That is illustrated at the University of North Carolina, where, after a major controversy, antievolution forces did not prevail. Bryan helped trivialize the issue with his populist appeals at the Scopes Trial. The antievolutionist argument that if Christianity was not taught in schools, then neither should anti-Christianity be, effective earlier against Jefferson, pointed to the problem in the twentieth century of maintaining a bland blend of Christian and secular thought.

Riley's Empire: Northwestern Bible School and Fundamentalism in the Upper Midwest

1988 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-212
Author(s):  
William Vance Trollinger
Keyword(s):  
Upper Midwest ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Scopes Trial ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
Protestant Denominations ◽  
Bible School

In the 1920s a loosely united band of militant conservatives launched a crusade to capture conrol of the major Protestant denominations. These fundamentalists staunchly affirmed the supernatural character and literal accuracy of the Bible, the supernatural character of Christ, and the necessity for Christians to separate themselves from the world. Most often Baptists and Presbyterians, they struggled to reestablish their denominations as true and pure churches: true to the historic doctrines of the faith as they perceived them, and pure from what they saw as the polluting influences of an increasingly corrupt modern culture. But by the late 1920s the fundamentalists had lost the fight. Not only were they powerless minorities in the Northern Baptist and the Northern Presbyterian denominations, where the struggle for control had been the fiercest, but many perceived them as uneducated, intolerant rustics. The Scopes trial cemented this notion in the popular consciousness.

The Bible

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannibal Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Epics ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
Made In

The Christian religion is based on the Bible, and no book had a greater influence on early modern English literature. The Bible was at the heart of the early modern culture of translation, and the English language was affected by the efforts of William Tyndale, Miles Coverdale, and others to properly render the Bible’s original Hebrew and Greek. Since understanding and following the Bible was necessary to salvation, and the Bible is often difficult, Bible reading also demanded interpretation, and this led to the proliferation of interpretive aids: biblical paratexts, sermons, and commentaries. Translation is necessarily interpretive, in the choices made in English Bibles, but especially in broader paraphrases and adaptations, from the metrical Psalms of Sternhold and Hopkins and Philip and Mary Sidney to the biblical epics of Du Bartas, Abraham Cowley, and Milton. Much of early modern literature could be described as an effort to understand the Bible.

The Bulgarian Worldview Mosaic: Literary Paraphrases of the Bible as a Source for the History of Ideas

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-193
Author(s):  
Ewelina Drzewiecka
Keyword(s):  
Interwar Period ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
Social Crisis ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of

Abstract The paper raises the question of functioning of Biblical tradition in modern culture in the perspective of the history of ideas. Referring to the postsecular interpretation of the Modernity, the research is based on Biblical paraphrases in Bulgarian literature of the interwar period, which are perceived as a testimony of the search for a worldview. The aim is to show how a situation of ideological turmoil accompanied by experiences of social crisis leads to utilizing a Gnostic worldview. The phenomenon is seen in a broader context as an illustration of transmission of ideas within the Western culture and religious thought.

The Bible in Modern Culture: Theology and Historical-Critical Method from Spinoza to Käsemann

Pro Ecclesia ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-377
Author(s):  
Roy A. Harrisville ◽  
Walter Sundberg
Keyword(s):  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Critical Method

scholarly journals De opstanding van Lazarus (Johannes 10:40–12:11): Bijbelse echo’s in Lazarus is dead (2011) van Richard Beard

2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim Weren
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Gospel ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Cultural Setting ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Modern Novel ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses the relationship between the modern novel of Beard and John’s storiesabout Lazarus and Jesus, and wants to give answers to three questions: (1) how is the Lazarusstory in John interpreted by Beard?; (2) what meaning does John’s story have within its ownliterary and cultural setting?; (3) what similarities and differences are there between Beard’sinterpretation and the original meaning of the Johannine story? Questions 1 and 2 require anintratextual analysis, which focuses on the structure and meaning lines in each of the two texts.Then follows an intertextual analysis which in this article is particularly aimed at comparingthe contents of the concepts/ death/ and/ live/ in the Fourth Gospel with the ways in whichthese concepts are semantically coloured in Beard’s book. Studying echoes from the Bible inmodern literary contexts can explain how the rich potential of meaning of biblical texts isbeing unlocked in new texts, time and time again, but can also help us to read the Bible withnew eyes through the lens of modern culture.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Brownlee
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
The Relationship

The Introduction begins with a short discussion of George Herbert’s ‘H. Scriptures II’, a poem that demonstrates, unequivocally, literary interest in the particularities of biblical interpretation. This poem serves as a departure point for a broader survey of scripture’s profound influence on early modern culture and a preview of the book’s objectives. Acknowledging the Bible’s impact on individuals’ daily habits, education, and modes of reading and writing, as well as the period’s poetry, drama, and art, the discussion situates the book’s central concerns and questions in relation to the critical field. Historical and critical approaches to the relationship between early modern literature and the Bible are considered, and a brief preview of the chapters is offered by way of conclusion.

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