Retrievals in Contemporary Christian Theology

2019 ◽  
pp. 722-740
Author(s):  
Matthew Levering
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Hans Urs Von Balthasar ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Protestant Christians ◽  
Patristic Exegesis

This chapter explores the retrievals of patristic exegesis among Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians since the 1930s. The contributions of Georges Florovsky, Vladimir Lossky, Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar are singled out for particular significance. Among Protestants, the most important work has been done in recent decades, especially by Thomas Oden, who has spearheaded a popular series of compilations of patristic commentary, and by scholars who are producing commentaries on biblical books that include the reception history. Lest the term ‘retrieval’ be misleading, the chapter notes that patristic exegesis was well known in prior centuries as well, and indeed it continued to guide Catholic and Orthodox biblical studies into the early part of the twentieth century.

Troeltsch's Eschatological Absolute

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan F. Kuehn
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Testament ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
The Core ◽  
Divine Transcendence ◽  
The Absolute

This study argues that the core of Ernst Troeltsch’s theological project is an eschatological conception of the Absolute. Troeltsch developed his idea of the Absolute from post-Kantian religious and philosophical thought and applied it to the Christian doctrine of eschatology. Troeltsch’s eschatological Absolute must be understood in the context of questions being raised at the turn of the twentieth century by research on New Testament apocalypticism, as well as by modern critical methodologies in the historical sciences. The study is a revisionist response to common approaches to Troeltsch that read him as introducing problematic historicist and immanentist assumptions into Christian theology. Instead it argues that Troeltsch’s theological modernism presents a compelling account of the meaningfulness of history while retaining a commitment to divine transcendence that is unconditioned by history. As such, his theology remains relevant to theological research today, well beyond theological circles that normally take Troeltsch’s legacy to contribute in a constructive way to their work.

Levantine Art in the “Orientalizing” Period

2019 ◽  
pp. 369-383
Author(s):  
Marian H. Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The West ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
First Millennium

The “Orientalizing period” represents a scholarly designation used to describe the eighth and seventh centuries bce when regions in Greece, Italy, and farther west witnessed a flourishing of arts and cultures attributed to contact with cultural areas to the east—in particular that of the Phoenicians. This chapter surveys Orientalizing as an intellectual and historiographic concept and reconsiders the role of purportedly Phoenician arts within the existing scholarly narratives. The Orientalizing period should be understood as a construct of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship that was structured around a false dichotomy between the Orient (the East) and the West. The designation “Phoenician” has a similarly complex historiographic past rooted in ancient Greek stereotyping that has profoundly shaped modern scholarly interpretations. This chapter argues that the luxury arts most often credited as agents of Orientalization—most prominent among them being carved ivories, decorated metal bowls, and engraved tridacna shells—cannot be exclusively associated with a Phoenician cultural origin, thus calling into question the primacy of the Phoenicians in Orientalizing processes. Each of these types of objects appears to have a much broader production sphere than is indicated by the attribute as Phoenician. In addition, the notion of unidirectional influences flowing from east to west is challenged, and instead concepts of connectivity and networking are proposed as more useful frameworks for approaching the problem of cultural relations during the early part of the first millennium bce.

Transforming Historical Objectivism into Historical Hermeneutics: From “Historical Illness” to Properly Lived Historicality

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-515
Author(s):  
Thomas Tops
Keyword(s):  
Reception History ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
Critical Methodology ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Texts

Summary The present study analyses recent criticisms against the use of modern-historical methodologies in Biblical Studies. These methodologies abstract from the historical horizon of the researcher. In order to relate properly to the historicality of the researcher, historical objectivism needs to be transformed into historical hermeneutics. Recent developments in the historical methodology of biblical scholars are unable to reckon with the historicality of the researcher due to the partial or incorrect implementation of Gadamer’s views on reception history. I analyse the views of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Gadamer on historicality and contend that the study of reception history is a necessary condition for conducting historical study from within the limits of our historicality. Reception history should not be a distinct methodological step to study the “Nachleben” of biblical texts, but needs to clarify how the understanding of these texts is already effected by their history of interpretation. The awareness of the presuppositions that have guided previous interpretations of biblical texts enables us to be confronted by their alterity. This confrontation calls for a synthesis between reception-historical and historical-critical methodology that introduces a new paradigm for conducting historical study in Biblical Studies in dialogue with other theological disciplines.

Incentives Then and Now

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth W. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Scientific Management ◽  
Historical Account ◽  
Ethical Aspects ◽  
Behavioral Psychology ◽  
The Social

This chapter presents a historical account of the use of the term “incentives” and of the introduction of incentives in scientific management and behavioral psychology. “Incentives” came into the language in the early part of the twentieth century in America. During this period, the language of social control and of social engineering was quite prevalent, and incentives were understood to be one tool in the social engineers' toolbox—an instrument of power. Not coincidentally, incentives were also extremely controversial at this time and were criticized from several quarters as dehumanizing, manipulative, heartless, and exploitative. When incentives are viewed as instruments of power, the controversial ethical aspects of their use come readily to the fore.

Known by God: C. S. Lewis and Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2005 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-352
Author(s):  
Brian S. Rosner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Human Relationship ◽  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pastoral Value ◽  
The Image Of God

Whereas knowing God is central to every version of Christian theology, little attention has been paid to the other side of the divine-human relationship. This introductory essay approaches the subject via the brief but poignant remarks of two twentieth-century authors appearing in a work of fiction and in a poem. If C. S. Lewis recognizes the primacy of being known by God, Dietrich Bonhoeffer helps define it and underscores its pastoral value. Both authors accurately reflect the main contours of the Bible’s own treatment. Calvin’s view of the image of God, which T. F. Torrance defines as ‘God’s gracious beholding of man as his child,’ may be of assistance in defining what it means to be known by God.

People and the contemporary environment

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Eden
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Ecological Science ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Geographical approaches to human-environment relations have been diverse and dynamic over the last century. They have also been heavily influenced not only by academic disciplines outside geography but by popular and policy concerns outside academia. From an initial flurry of activity about how the environment influences society in the early part of the century, British geography then took a detour to other topics even as other disciplines discovered the environment as a topic of interest. This left geographers playing ‘catch-up’ in the late twentieth century, as the discipline sought to reoccupy the ground previously abandoned. This is not over yet: in the 1990s, research into ‘the environment’ and ‘nature’ was scattered across academia. This chapter examines the relationship between humans and the contemporary environment, focusing on environmental protection, environmental management and ecological science, environmental policy and management, environmentalism, and environment and history.

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