The contours and issues of contemporary apologetics

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-237
Author(s):  
Michael Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Trinity

In this article, I examine five important components of the apologetic enterprise. Specifically, based on two biblical examples, I note that apologetics occurs within particular and broad cultural contexts, addresses perennial religious and philosophical concerns, involves defending diverse Christian traditions, and sometimes necessitates clarification or even development of theological insights. I also discuss several key issues facing contemporary apologists, issues arising from our own modern and now postmodern historical context. Among those issues are concerns over how religious knowledge may be accrued, how faith and reason relate, whether God’s existence or nature can be established by reason, whether it is reasonable to believe miracles have happened or are even possible, whether the Bible is trustworthy, how science and Christianity relate, whether core doctrines of Christianity—like the Incarnation or the Trinity—are coherent, why God allows evil, and how Christianity and other religions interrelate. By describing these various features of apologetics, I hope to aid the reader in seeing the complex and intricate nature of the contemporary Christian apologetic task.

Saint Photius of Constantinople. Amphilochia. Treatise 1

2019 ◽  
pp. 78-108
Author(s):  
Дмитрий Евгеньевич Афиногенов
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Correct Application

Трактат 1 из сборника «Амфилохии» св. патр. Фотия на примере истолкования конкретных мест из Библии объясняет методологию библейской экзегезы вообще. Во внимание должен приниматься не только богословский или исторический контекст, но также чисто филологические аспекты: семантика, интонация, языковой узус Нового Завета и Септуагинты, возможные разночтения и т. д. Патриарх убеждён, что при правильном пользовании этим инструментарием можно объяснить все кажущиеся противоречащими высказывания Св. Писания таким образом, что они окажутся в полном согласии друг с другом. The first treatise from «Amphilochia» by the St. Patriarch Photios expounds the general principles of the biblical exegesis on a specific example of certain passages from the Bible. It is not just the theological or historical context that has to be taken into consideration, but also purely philological aspects, such as semantics, intonation, the language usage of the New Testament and Septuagint, possible variant readings etc. The Patriarch is convinced, that the correct application of these tools makes it possible to perfectly harmonize all seemingly contradictory statements of the Scriptures.

Spinoza and Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1660-1710

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Ecclesiastical History ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Dutch Golden Age

This book investigates the biblical criticism of Spinoza from the perspective of the Dutch Reformed society in which the philosopher lived and worked. It focusses on philological investigation of the Bible: its words, its language, and the historical context in which it originated. The book charts contested issues of biblical philology in mainstream Dutch Calvinism, to determine whether Spinoza’s work on the Bible had any bearing on the Reformed understanding of the way society should engage with Scripture. Spinoza has received massive attention, both inside and outside academia. His unconventional interpretation of the Old Testament passages has been examined repeatedly over the decades. So has that of fellow ‘radicals’ (rationalists, radicals, deists, libertines, enthusiasts), against the backdrop of a society that is assumed to have been hostile, overwhelmed, static, and uniform. This book inverts this perspective and looks at how the Dutch Republic digested biblical philology and biblical criticism, including that of Spinoza. It takes into account the highly neglected area of the Reformed ministry and theology of the Dutch Golden Age. The result is that Dutch ecclesiastical history, up until now the preserve of the partisan scholarship of confessionalized church historians, is brought into dialogue with Early Modern intellectual currents. This book concludes that Spinoza, rather than simply pushing biblical scholarship in the direction of modernity, acted in an indirect way upon ongoing debates in Dutch society, shifting trends in those debates, but not always in the same direction, and not always equally profoundly, at all times, on all levels.

Humanism, the Bible, and Erasmus’s Moral World Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Tubau
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Just War ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
World Order ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Moral World

This chapter sets Erasmus’s ideas on morality and the responsibility of rulers with regard to war in their historical context, showing their coherence and consistency with the rest of his philosophy. First, there is an analysis of Erasmus’s criticisms of the moral and legal justifications of war at the time, which were based on the just war theory elaborated by canon lawyers. This is followed by an examination of his ideas about the moral order in which the ruler should be educated and political power be exercised, with the role of arbitration as the way to resolve conflicts between rulers. As these two closely related questions are developed, the chapter shows that the moral formation of rulers, grounded in Christ’s message and the virtue politics of fifteenth-century Italian humanism, is the keystone of the moral world order that Erasmus proposes for his contemporaries.

Hobbes's Political Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.P. Martinich
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
New Science ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Hobbes’s Political Philosophy: Interpretation and Interpretations extends a position first explained in The Two Gods of Leviathan (1992). Hobbes presented what he believed would be a science of politics, a set of timeless truths grounded in definitions. In chapters on the laws of nature, authorization and representation, sovereignty by acquisition, and others, the author explains this science of politics. In addition to the timeless science, Hobbes had two timebound projects: (1) to eliminate the apparent conflict between the new science of Copernicus and Galileo and traditional Christian doctrine, and (2) to show that Christianity, correctly understood, is not politically destabilizing. The strategy for accomplishing (1) was to distinguish science from religion and to understand Christianity as essentially belief in the literal meaning of the Bible. The strategy for accomplishing (2) was to appeal to biblical teachings such as “Servants, obey your masters,” and “All authority comes from God.” Criticisms of the author’s interpretations are the occasion for (a) fleshing out Hobbes’s historical context and (b) describing the nature of interpretation in dialogue with opposing interpretations by scholars such as Jeffrey Collins, Edwin Curley, John Deigh, and Quentin Skinner. Interpretation is updating one’s network of beliefs in order to re-establish an equilibrium upset by a text. Interpretations may be judged according to prima facie properties of good interpretations such as completeness, consistency, simplicity, generality, palpability, and defensibility.

scholarly journals Knowing the Father

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David. T. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Greek Thought ◽  
The World ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Trinity

The emergence of the Charismatic movement has generated a new awareness and interest in the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, but has also brought a realisation that there is a still-neglected Person of the Trinity, the Father. Part of the reason for this lies in the historical development in the doctrine of the Trinity, which led to a belief that external actions of God are not differentiated between the Persons, and also in the fact that the Father only generally acts in the world by Son and Spirit, so has no clear role. It seems natural to attribute creation to the Father, but even here, the Bible sees the Son as the actual creator. Nevertheless, the Father can be seen as the source of the concepts and means behind the material; interestingly there are hints of this in classical Greek thought and other faiths. This is ongoing, perhaps particularly in the evolutionary process of the world. Thus, paralleling the incarnation, the Father is present in the material universe, as its ethos. He can also be seen to be affected by creation, sharing in its nature in his kenōsis, and in its suffering. Creation then inspires a sense of wonder not only from its existence, extent and nature, but from its interactions and underlying concepts; this is worship of the Father. Sin is then when this is overlooked, or when actions disrupt it; these are an offence to the Father.

scholarly journals Bible Study of Mission and Discipleship in the Great Commission and Its Implications for Today's Christian Life

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-42
Author(s):  
Yonatan Alex Arifianto ◽  
Reni Triposa ◽  
Paulus Karaeng Lembongan
Keyword(s):  
Research Question ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Bible Study ◽  
Great Commission ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Library Research ◽  
Biblical Study ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Quantitative Descriptive

Abstract Christianity in the spiritual growth and quantity of the church cannot be separated from believers who carry out the mandate of the Great Commission. But in the accompanying journey of God there is not much that can be done by believers in mission and discipleship. So with that focus and purpose of this research is to answer the research question of how the Bible study of mission and discipleship in the Great Commission and its implications for Christian life today. While the problem that occurs in this research work is how Discipleship and mission are not properly understood in the current era so that many prioritize mission but override discipleship or vice versa. But the benefits of this research are: first, the importance of mission in the Great Commission, then the importance of discipleship for believers and continuity and the last implies mission and discipleship as life priorities. To describe the biblical study of mission and discipleship in the Great Commission and its implications for contemporary Christian life, researchers used library research methods with quantitative descriptive approaches.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 248-254
Author(s):  
Manoela Carpenedo
Keyword(s):  
Orthodox Judaism ◽  
Religious Change ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Christian Zionism ◽  
Messianic Judaism ◽  
Contemporary Christian ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Evangelical Women ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Social Markers

The conclusion summarizes the main arguments of the book. It explores themes such as the rationale of the Judaizing Evangelical revival and how it relates with wider discussions of religious change. It debates how social markers gender and ethnicity are intertwined in the case of the Judaizing Evangelicals in Brazil. At the micro level, it reveals how former Charismatic Evangelical women gradually adopt a set of religious norms in their daily lives through a curious negotiation of their Charismatic Evangelical pasts and the strict rules of Orthodox Judaism. At the macro level, describes the birth of a new tendency within Christianity that differs from similar Christian philo-Semitic movements such as Messianic Judaism and Christian Zionism. It concludes by stating how the rise of Judaizing Evangelicalism pushes forward key issues related to contemporary Christian philo-Semitism and World Christianities. Rather than an emic concept, it suggests that Judaizing Evangelicalism should be understood as an analytical concept that describes an unique interaction between Jewish and Christian monotheisms.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kirsten Macfarlane
Keyword(s):  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Confessional Identity ◽  
The Relationship

The introduction begins by outlining how Broughton’s modern reputation as an angry puritan was created over two centuries by a series of historians with various confessional motivations. Next, it analyses Broughton’s early life as a promising scholar at Cambridge, and explains key issues such as how his beliefs about scripture affected his attitudes to the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible. Finally, it summarizes the three major interventions of this book. The first concerns the relationship between scholars’ beliefs about scripture and the methods they used to study it. Broughton shows that it was possible to be an innovative exponent of the historical-philological method, while also believing that the Bible was infallible and verbally inspired; and that these positions could be mutually reinforcing. But while scholars like Broughton have generally been used as proof of the ‘unintended consequences’ theory of change from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, the introduction uses him to critique this theory. The second intervention concerns the relationship between confessional identity and historical scholarship, building on recent works that have emphasized the impossibility of theologically ‘neutral’ scholarship in this period by extending their findings into new areas such as chronology. Lastly, the third intervention concerns the relationship between elite neo-Latin biblical scholarship and vernacular lay religious culture in this period. It argues that biblical scholarship, even of the most demanding kind, deeply appealed to ordinary readers of scripture, and posits Broughton as a pioneer in the field of accessible, vernacular-oriented— but still highly scholarly—biblical criticism.

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