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1 - From pondering scripture to the first principles of Christian theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Frances Young
Frances Young
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Summary

Prelude

The child is gripped by stories in a children's Bible; the teenager puts the book on the same shelf as Grimm's Fairy Tales.

The archaeologist explores ancient sites, while the expert deciphers inscriptions in ancient scripts, construes unearthed texts in ancient languages and notes telling parallels to the biblical literature.

The student learns Greek and Hebrew, and encounters a world distant in time, geography, language and culture; the scholar analyses style, notes aporiai in the text, probes questions about origin and redaction, date and provenance, authenticity and historicity.

The apologist struggles with scientific and moral challenges to the Bible’s wisdom and veracity; the fundamentalist reverses the priorities, asserting the Bible’s authority over against human ideas.

The theologian seeks to make sense of God and the universe, of human nature and human life, of history and human behaviour, in the light of contemporary knowledge about the way things are, as well as the Bible and the traditions of Christian doctrine.

The simple believer memorizes key words to guide action and shape prayer; the preacher picks up the lectionary, seeking to relate the texts to liturgy and life . . .

Type
Chapter
Information
God's Presence
A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity
 , pp. 7 - 43
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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References

Trevor, William, Love and Summer (London: Viking/Penguin, 2009), p. 198Google Scholar
Holman, Susan R., The Hungry are Dying (Oxford University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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‘John Chrysostom on I & II Corinthians’, SP 18 (1986)
Vanier, Jean, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John (Toronto: Novalis, 2004)Google Scholar
Williamson, G. A., Eusebius: The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, rev. edn, A. Louth (Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin, 1989)
Lindars, Barnabas, The Gospel of John, New Century Bible (London: Oliphants, 1972)Google Scholar
Barton, John, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville, KY and London: Westminster John Knox, 2007)Google Scholar
Ford, David (SPCK, 1987); The Art of Performance: Towards a Theology of Holy Scripture (London: DLT, 1990)Google Scholar
‘The Pastorals and the Ethics of Reading’ JSNT 45 (1992), 105–20; ‘From Suspicion and Sociology to Spirituality: On Method, Hermeneutics and Appropriation with Respect to Patristic Material’, SP 29 (1997), 421–35
Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
‘Towards Transformational Reading of Scripture’, with Jean Vanier, in Bartholomew, Craig, Hahn, Scott, Parry, Robin, Seitz, Christopher and Al Wolters (eds.), Canon and Biblical Interpretation (Bletchley: Paternoster Press, 2006Google Scholar
Koetschau, P. et al. (eds.), GCS; ET: G. W. Butterworth (London: SPCK 1936, reprinted Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973)Google Scholar
Trigg, Joseph W., Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (London: SCM Press, 1983), pp. 91–2Google Scholar
Edwards, Mark, Origen against Plato (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002)Google Scholar
Brook, Peter, The Empty Space (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2008Google Scholar

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