Scripture

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-136
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Biblical Texts

This chapter outlines the contours of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s approach to Scripture as God’s word and witness to Christ. It begins by examining the role of the Bible in Bonhoeffer’s own life and work, emphasising two of his main influences: Karl Barth and Martin Luther. The main part of the chapter turns to Bonhoeffer’s ways of attending to biblical texts in their historicity and substance. Finally, the chapter suggests that Bonhoeffer’s approach is marked by a posture of reading the Bible ‘against ourselves’—that is, to remain open to the Bible as God’s own cruciform word and witness.

Witches and Forgers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Mandelbrote
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
1 Samuel ◽  
The Witch

Scepticism and loyalty represent the poles of van Dale’s career. Two contexts have been mentioned as relevant here: the seventeenth-century attack on magic and superstition, and the circles of friendship that created a contemporary Republic of Letters. This chapter evaluates both contexts, as well as others that may throw light on his relatively neglected attitude to the text of the Bible. It brings into focus two important intellectual episodes: his treatment of the account of the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3–25), and his engagement with Hellenistic sources relating to the text of the Old Testament, especially to the miraculous composition of the Septuagint. These issues brought van Dale to ask questions about God’s Word. The chapter explores the limits of his scepticism, the extent of his scholarship, and the role of friendship and isolation in his development. Finally, it draws attention to his place in contemporary Mennonite debates.

Interpreting the Bible Amidst Ecological Degradation

Theology ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 112 (867) ◽  
pp. 199-207
Author(s):  
Ernst M. Conradie
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Ecological Degradation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
Contemporary Context

This essay explores the role of interpretative strategies in biblical interpretation. It is argued that ‘doctrinal constructs’ play a crucial role in appropriating the significance of biblical texts in and for a particular contemporary context. Various such constructs typically employed for an ecological biblical hermeneutics are analysed. Suggestions are offered towards the use of more sophisticated constructs, with reference to the notions of the ‘liberation of creation’, the ‘wisdom of God’ and the ‘whole household of God’.

Loitering with Intent: Biblical Texts in Public Places

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Print Media ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Public Places ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Natural Place ◽  
The Common ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractThis essay is about the effect of the Bible in the public arena. It explores the fate of biblical texts as they find themselves in the popular press. Secular newspapers are not the natural place to look for biblical citations but now and then they make appearances either to support or subvert issues ranging from asylumseekers to the use of corporal punishment for children. At a time when biblical allusions and imagery have all but evaporated from the Western consciousness, the intermittent showing up of sacred texts in the secular print media is a sign that the scriptures still have some hermeneutical hold. The essay looks at four areas—international conflict, sexual orientation, law and order and bringing-up children—where biblical texts are being summoned either to endorse or to repudiate. The essay raises hermeneutical issues such as how biblical texts are used in print media, the nature of the texts employed, the interface between popular and professional reading, the role of the common reader as a biblical commentator, and concludes with an examination of the standing and sway of the Bible as it moves outside its own natural habitat.

Living in the Forms of the Word: Bonhoeffer and Rosenzweig on the Apocalyptic Materiality of Scripture

2021 ◽  
pp. 095394682110313
Author(s):  
Michael Mawson
Keyword(s):  
Dietrich Bonhoeffer ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ongoing Work ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Biblical Texts

Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Franz Rosenzweig each provided rich reflections on how we are to understand and approach the Bible as God’s word. They each understood Scripture as revelation, while attending closely to the substance and forms of biblical texts. This article therefore explores how their approaches to Scripture can contribute to ongoing work in apocalyptic theology. In particular, it draws out the ethic of responsibility that is inherent in their biblical hermeneutics.

scholarly journals Die Woord van God by Luther

1998 ◽  
Vol 54 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W.C. Van Wyk
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Law And Gospel

Luther's understanding of the Word of God. This paper attempts to show that Martin Luther is much more than a great personality from the past. He is in fact an important theological father of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk. Our theology must be understood from the perspective of Luther's theology. A call is also made that theologians from the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk not turn their backs on Luther. This paper concentrates on Luther's understand-ing of the Word of God. It gives perspectives on historical developments in Luther's theology. It also disCusses the following themes: the Bible as the Word of God, the relationship between Old and New Testament, the relationship between law and gospel, the position of the pope and the role of experience in understanding the Word of God.

Bridging the gulf between biblical scholars and theologians: Can Barth and Wright provide an answer?

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-434
Author(s):  
Maico Michielin
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Length Relationship ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractThere was a time when the interpretation of the Bible was a seamless integrated theological activity. Today, the separation of biblical studies from theologically interested exegesis amongst theologians encourages a sceptical arms-length relationship between Old and New Testament scholars and theologians. Theologians criticise biblical studies' so-called objective and disinterested approach to interpreting the Bible for requiring scholars of both testaments to suspend their theological convictions. Biblical scholars condemn theologians for misusing biblical texts in support of their own preconceived theological agendas. The article suggests a way to bring these divergent exegetical approaches into conversation in a charitable, yet critical fashion, by comparing Karl Barth and N. T. Wright's exegesis of Romans 3:21–4:25. It concludes that the biblical scholar's and theologian's respective sensitivity to the historical and theological sense of the biblical text can, when brought together, benefit each other's reading of the Bible.

‘Thy word is truth’: the role of faith in reading scripture theologically with Karl Barth

2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-92
Author(s):  
Paul D. Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Paul Tillich ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Justification By Faith ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractFollowing the thinking of Karl Barth, this article demonstrates how and why reading the Bible in faith is necessary in order to understand the truth which is and remains identical with God himself speaking to us in his Word and Spirit. After developing how faith, grace, revelation and truth are connected in Barth's theology by being determined by who God is in Jesus Christ, this article explains why Barth was essentially correct in claiming that we cannot know God truly through a study of religious experience but only through Christ himself and thus through the Spirit. I illustrate that for Barth the truth of religion simply cannot be found in the study of religion itself but only through revelation. That is why he applied the doctrine of justification by faith both to knowledge of God and to reading scripture. In light of what is then established, I conclude by briefly exploring exactly why the thinking of Paul Tillich, and three theologians who follow the general trend of Tillich's thinking (John Haught, John A. T. Robinson and S. Mark Heim), exemplify the correctness of Barth's analysis of the relation between religion and revelation, since each theologian is led to an understanding of who God is, how we reach God and how the doctrine of the Trinity should be understood that actually undermines Barth's emphasis on the fact that all knowledge of God and all doctrine should be dictated solely by who God is in Jesus Christ.

scholarly journals Skrifbeskouing in die lig van postmoderniteit

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andries G. Van Aarde
Keyword(s):  
Karl Barth ◽  
The Other ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
The Bible ◽  
God's Word ◽  
Postmodern Theology ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

Perspective on Scripture in light of postmodernityThe aim of the article is to focus on the Reformers’ so-called “Scripture Principle” in light of the paradigm shifts from pre-modern, to modern and to postmodern theology. The “Scripture Principle” relates mainly to two notions: the Bible is God’s word in human speech and Scripture is handed to all believers who are encouraged to interpret it for themselves. In light of the perspectives on Scripture by Friedrich Schleiermacher, Karl Barth, and Rudolf Bultmann, the article discusses the “Scripture Principle” according to three positions: the Bible as book of the church; the Bible as book of believers; the Bible as book of theologians. The article advocates tolerance for users of the Bible to regard the authority of Scripture in concurrence with anyone of these positions without the hegemony of the one over the other. Yet, an overlap is an indication of postmodern theology.

Reading the Bible in Africa: on strategies and ownership

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 124-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Punt
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Status ◽  
Biblical Texts

AbstractWithin the continuing search for or development of an adequate African hermeneutic for the Bible, the adequacy of certain generalising claims concerning the interpretation of the Bible in Africa is investigated: the continuity between the biblical and African worlds, and the discarding of the text's historical context in favour of the contemporary readers' setting. These generalised claims, however, introduce an important issue which seems to be in dire need of discussion: the status and role of the biblical texts in their canonical shape. The question of canon cannot be seen in isolation from, but indeed rests on, certain ideological concerns.

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