The Bible and Environmentalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calvin B. DeWitt
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
New World ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Aldo Leopold ◽  
John Muir ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Rachel Carson ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Bible

The Bible describes the satisfying and joyful appointment given to Adam and Eve to serve and to keep the Garden of Eden, but their disastrous choice to know evil spoiled people and their life-support system. In the New World, millennia later, settlers in the Eden of America again lost ground, but between 1864 and 1964 they were alerted, principally by five biblically informed people—George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson—who after their deaths came to be called environmentalists and whose message was termed environmentalism. Their testimony and his personal experience motivated Professor Lynton Caldwell to help design flagship legislation that would inaugurate the remarkable environmental decade of the 1970s. This was joined in 2016 by Laudato Si’, bringing hope that the long-standing stewardship tradition would be rekindled not only in America but around the globe.

scholarly journals Mystifying moments in Bible interpretation: An exploration of some implied backgrounds to three kinds of unusual Bible readings

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoffel Lombaard
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Home Country ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Direct Support ◽  
Bible Interpretation ◽  
To Come

This contribution is part of a series on Methodology and Biblical Spirituality. In this, the fourth contribution, the scope is widened; more practical-analytically oriented, three thoroughly different but nevertheless all unusual kinds of interpretations of the Bible are described, characterised and contextualised. Namely:• In order to explain what are perceived as textual anomalies, some Old Testament authors have been described by US-based medical practitioners as having suffered psychiatric dysfunctions.• The Garden of Eden from Genesis 2 and further has been located by a recently diseased Nigerian scholar as having been in her home country, with a Nigerian race having been the predecessors of biblical Adam and Eve.• Rastafarians, primarily Jamaica-based, regard marijuana as a holy herb and find direct support for their religious use of this plant in the Bible.However strange such ‘mystifying’ interpretations may seem within the theological mainstreams of Judeo-Christianity, there is more to these kinds of interpretations than simple whim. Certain cultural conditions along with personal, particularly spiritual, commitments enable these interpretations, which must be taken seriously in order to come to a fuller understanding of the text–interpreter dynamic. These then can cast at least some form of reflective light on the more usual current biblical-interpretative mainstreams within Judeo-Christianity, posing in a new light the question of what constitutes legitimate interpretations, also within mainstream interpretations, as religiously inclined people try to live their lives in the light of Scripture.

From Arbor Day to the Environmental Sabbath: Nature, Liturgy, and American Protestantism

1991 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-323
Author(s):  
Leigh Eric Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Henry David Thoreau ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Aldo Leopold ◽  
John Muir ◽  
Rachel Carson ◽  
American Protestantism ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
American Churches

In the past two decades considerable theological energy has been expended in the construction of various ecological theologies and spiritualities. Process theologians, ecofeminists, and theologians of creation, earth, nature, ecology, and land have been elucidating religious perspectives that they hope will help transform human attitudes toward nature and the environment. These writers have sought to reorient Christianity away from anthropocentric views that claim human dominion over nature, premillennial expectations that embrace the destruction of this world, soteriological preoccupations that focus on individual salvation, and otherworldly assumptions that foster alienation from the earth and nature. Some sanguine observers have seen this recent ferment as the greening of American theology or even the greening of the American churches. At the same time, intellectual historians have paid increasing attention to the history of Western ideas about nature and have debated at length the impact of Christianity's theological heritage on the environmental crisis. Specifically, a number of historians have constructed a genealogy of American conservationist and preservationist thought by tracing out a line that includes, among others, George Catlin, Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson.

scholarly journals Адам и Ева, единосъщите – модел и мит на първата библейска двойка в българския междувоенен роман

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 422-437
Author(s):  
Аглика [Aglika] Попова [Popova]
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Family ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Point Of Intersection

Adam and Eve, consubstantial: Model and myth of the first Biblical couple in Bulgarian interwar novelThe article examines the first biblical couple as a tool for comparative analysis of the mod­ernist tendencies of Bulgarian novel in the period between the two World Wars. The research focuses on works by Chavdar Mutafov, Anna Kamenova, and Dimitar Dimov, along with examples taken from French and Romanian literary pieces as representatives of the wider, European history of ideas. In the image of Creation, but also the image of the original sin, Adam and Eve are of interest because of their unity, which eventually becomes the basis of the Christian family after they leave the Garden of Eden. The borders of the model given in the Bible are breached with the introduction of a new reading – the figures of Creation can now also be seen as figures of salvation. The knowledge gained by the existing studies of myth in European literature thus becomes the foundation for a revision of the hitherto selective interpretation of works by the Bulgarian novelists. The point of intersection between the dif­ferent approaches towards the first couple is their arduous integration into the surrounding world, and adaptation to the passage of time. Another prominent feature is the discussion about the possible development of the model; the newly introduced definition of salvation that comes after Creation and the fall of man. Adam i Ewa współistotni – model i mit pierwszej biblijnej pary w bułgarskiej powieści międzywojennejTematem artykułu jest pierwsza biblijna para ludzi, rozumiana jako wiodący motyw analizy porównawczej modernistycznych tendencji w bułgarskiej powieści okresu międzywojennego. Jako przykład posłużyły prace Czawdara Mutafowa, Anny Kamenowej i Dimityra Dimowa, a także francuskie i rumuńskie utwory literackie, służące osadzeniu wywodu w szerszym kontekście europejskiej historii idei. Zarówno w obrazie Stworzenia, jak i w obrazie grze­chu pierworodnego, postacie Adama i Ewy są interesujące ze względu na ich jedność, która ostatecznie staje się podstawą chrześcijańskiej rodziny po opuszczeniu przez nich rajskiego ogrodu. Granice modelu podanego w Biblii zostają naruszone przez wprowadzenie nowego odczytania – figury Stworzenia mogą być również odczytywane jako figury zbawienia. Wiedza zdobyta dzięki dotychczasowym studiom nad mitem w literaturze europejskiej staje się pod­stawą do rewizji selektywnej interpretacji bułgarskich powieściopisarzy. Punktem wspólnym dla różnych podejść w badaniu pierwszej pary ludzi jest ich trudna integracja z otaczającym światem i próba pogodzenia się z upływem czasu. Inną istotną cechą jest dyskusja na temat rozwoju tego modelu: nowo wprowadzona definicja zbawienia, które przychodzi po Stworzeniu i upadku człowieka.

scholarly journals "Why Archaeology is important for Theology"

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-48
Author(s):  
Cayetana Heidi Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Near East ◽  
Water Levels ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Agricultural Revolution ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Cain And Abel

The Old Testament is clearly a mixture of myths and real historical figures with their events. There is no question about the contribution of mythology, since much of Genesis has been formed from common mythological accounts from all over the ancient Near East. The stories of Creation, the primordial couple, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the Great Flood, and much more, are a commonplace of narratives throughout the region. Although these accounts are mythological, it does not mean that they have not been shaped by real events. Specialists speculate about a great flood that took place in the Near East as a result of rising water levels at the end of the last Ice Age (around 5000 BC). This coincided at a time when the Agricultural Revolution had taken over the Fertile Crescent and Egypt. Various peoples of the Levant adopted mythological narratives and reformulated them to create their own unique and original tales. Some of the main figures of the Bible, such as Adam and Eve, Noah, Lot, finally the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) were their own compositions but, as can be seen with the patriarch Abraham, who was not an exclusive figure of the Hebrew people, his conversion to monotheism is, however, something peculiar to the spiritual creativity of the Jews. Here as in the composition of the New Testament, archeology is the necessary aid to locate the reality and the truth of sacred history and its development in human time.

scholarly journals The Future of Environmental Ethics

2011 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Holmes Rolston
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Ethical Concern ◽  
Aldo Leopold ◽  
John Muir ◽  
Daily News ◽  
Rachel Carson ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Future

Environmental ethics has a future as long as there are moral agents on Earth with values at stake in their environment. Somewhat ironically, just when humans, with their increasing industry and development, seemed further and further from nature, having more power to manage it, just when humans were more and more rebuilding their environments with their super technologies, the natural world emerged as a focus of ethical concern. Environmental alarms started with prophets such as Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, John Muir, and David Brower, and have, over recent decades, become daily news.

The Garden as Unfinished Narrative of the Good in C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-80
Author(s):  
Evrea Ness-Bergstein
Keyword(s):  
The Novel ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Growth And Change ◽  
Literary Devices ◽  
Hortus Conclusus

In Lewis’ transposition of Milton’s Paradise to a distant world where Adam and Eve do not succumb to Satan, the structure of Eden is radically different from the enclosed garden familiar to most readers. In the novel Perelandra (1944), C.S. Lewis represents the Garden of Eden as an open and ‘shifting’ place. The new Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve unfallen, is a place of indeterminate future, excitement, growth, and change, very unlike the static, safe, enclosed Garden—the hortus conclusus of traditional iconography—from which humanity is not just expelled but also, in some sense, escapes. The innovation is not in the theological underpinnings that Lewis claims to share with Milton but in the literary devices that make evil in Perelandra seem boring, dead-end, and repetitive, while goodness is the clear source of change and excitement.

Personal Bible Reading and the Faith Formation of Teenagers in a Digital Age

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Judith Hildebrandt ◽  
Jack Barentsen ◽  
Jos de Kock
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Faith Formation ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Back Seat ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Bible Reading ◽  
People Today

Abstract History shows that the use of the Bible by Christians has changed over the centuries. With the digitization and the ubiquitous accessibility of the Internet, the handling of texts and reading itself has changed. Research has also shown that young people’s faith adapts to the characteristics of the ‘age of authenticity’, which changes the role of normative institutions and texts in general. With regard to these developments this article deals with the question: How relevant is personal Bible reading for the faith formation of highly religious Protestant German teenagers? Answers to this question are provided from previous empirical surveys and from two qualitative studies among highly religious teenagers in Germany. The findings indicate, that other spiritual practices for young people today are more important as a source of faith than reading the Bible. The teenagers interviewed tend to seek an individual affective experience when reading the Bible, so that the importance of cognitive grasp of the content takes a back seat to personal experience.

Sustenance and Survival in Biblical Narrative

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Koosed
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Biblical Narrative ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Early Judaism ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Class Status ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
Shape Characterization

Food is a comprehensive cultural code. In ancient Israel and early Judaism, food production and preparation structured lives; what one did in the process was determined by gender and class status and sometimes even marked by ethnic and religious identity. Food also serves to structure narrative, shape characterization, and add layers of symbolic signification to story. In the Bible, the drama of the first few chapters revolves around proper versus improper eating, and the final book portrays God as a lamb sacrificed for the Passover meal. Between picking and tasting the forbidden fruit, and slaughtering and eating God, a whole host of food-related plots, characters, and images proliferate, many of which revolve around the most important of foodstuffs: bread. This chapter explores the centrality of bread in the story of Adam and Eve, the book of Ruth, and the gospels of Jesus.

scholarly journals "Sufficient to Have Stood, Though Free to Fall": Free Will in John Milton's Paradise Lost

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Martineau
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
John Milton ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
The Way

In Book I of Paradise Lost, John Milton (1608-1674) asserts his intent to “justifie the wayes of God to men” (Paradise Lost1 I 26), paving the way for a revolutionary discussion of human nature, divinity, and the problem of evil, all couched in an epic retelling of Satan’s fall from grace, his temptation of Adam and Eve, and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, as recounted in the Book of Genesis. In his treatment of the biblical account, Milton necessarily broaches a variety of subjects which were both relevant during his time and remain relevant in ours. Among these topics, and certainly one of the most compelling, is the matter of human free will.

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