In hierdie versamelbundel is daar ‘n groep uiteenlopende mense gevra om elk ‘n onafhanklike essay te skryf na aanleiding van ‘n Bybelteks.

Daar is skrywers, ekonome, musikante, akademici en joernaliste. Die enigste voorwaardes was dat dit persone moet wees wat nie meer kerklik betrokke en/ of ‘n dominee of teoloog is nie. Baie essays is bloot verhale, vertellings, reise of verduidelikings wat met ‘n teks verbind kan word.

Ons almal is medereisigers in hierdie verbygaande wêreldse bestel. Kom ons luister met ‘n oop gemoed na mekaar. Dán staan ons ‘n kans om te verstaan, te begryp, eerder as om te oordeel.

Van die bekende en bekroonde skrywers wat deelneem aan hierdie projek is onder andere Jurie van den Heever, Annelie Botes, Dana Snyman, Pik Botha, Heinz Modler, Lizette Rabe, Dawie Roodt, Rachelle Greeff, Piet Croukamp, Joan Hambidge, Koos Kombuis, Karin Brynard, Jean Oosthuizen, Christine Barkhuizen Le Roux, Lina Spies, Valda Jansen, Valiant Swart, Nathan Trantraal, Churchil Naude, Riku Lätti en Luke Alfred.

Kelly Besecke offers an examination of reflexive spirituality, a spirituality that draws equally on religions traditions and traditions of reason in the pursuit of transcendent meaning. People who practice reflexive spirituality prefer metaphor to literalism, spiritual experience to doctrinal belief, religious pluralism to religious exclusivism or inclusivism, and ongoing inquiry to ''final answers.'' Reflexive spirituality is aligned with liberal theologies in a variety of religious traditions and among the spiritual-but-not-religious. You Can't Put God in a Box draws on original qualitative data to describe how people practiced reflexive spirituality in an urban United Methodist church, an interfaith adult education center, and a variety of secular settings. The theoretical argument focuses on two kinds of rationality that are both part of the Enlightenment legacy. Technological rationality focuses our attention on finding the most efficient means to a particular end. Reflexive spiritualists reject forms of religiosity and secularity that rely on the biases of technological rationality-they see these as just so many versions of ''fundamentalism'' that are standing in the way of compelling spiritual meaning. Intellectual rationality, on the other hand, offers tools for analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of religious ideas. Reflexive spiritualists embrace intellectual rationality as a way of making religious traditions more meaningful for modern ears. Besecke provides a window into the progressive theological thinking of educated spiritual seekers and religious liberals. Grounded in participant observation, her book uses concrete examples of reflexive spirituality in practice to speak to the classical sociological problem of modern meaninglessness.

Indian thought is well known for diverse philosophical and contemplative excursions into the nature of selfhood. Led by Buddhists and the yoga traditions of Hinduism and Jainism, Indian thinkers have engaged in a rigorous analysis and reconceptualization of our common notion of self. Less understood is the way in which such theories of self intersect with issues involving agency and free will; yet such intersections are profoundly important, as all major schools of Indian thought recognize that moral goodness and religious fulfillment depend on the proper understanding of personal agency. Moreover, their individual conceptions of agency and freedom are typically nodes by which an entire school's epistemological, ethical, and metaphysical perspectives come together as a systematic whole. Free Will, Agency, and Selfhood in Indian Philosophy explores the contours of this issue, from the perspectives of the major schools of Indian thought. With new essays by leading specialists in each field, this volume provides rigorous analysis of the network of issues surrounding agency and freedom as developed within Indian thought.

The diversity of Nietzsche's books, and the sheer range of his philosophical interests, have posed daunting challenges to his interpreters. This Oxford Handbook addresses this multiplicity by devoting each of its 32 essays to a focused topic, picked out by the book's systematic plan. The aim is to treat each topic at the best current level of philosophical scholarship on Nietzsche. The first group of papers treat selected biographical issues: his family relations, his relations to women, and his ill health and eventual insanity. In Part 2 the papers treat Nietzsche in historical context: his relations back to other philosophers-the Greeks, Kant, and Schopenhauer-and to the cultural movement of Romanticism, as well as his own later influence in an unlikely place, on analytic philosophy. The papers in Part 3 treat a variety of Nietzsche's works, from early to late and in styles ranging from the 'aphoristic' The Gay Science and Beyond Good and Evil through the poetic-mythic Thus Spoke Zarathustra to the florid autobiography Ecce Homo. This focus on individual works, their internal unity, and the way issues are handled within them, is an important complement to the final three groups of papers, which divide up Nietzsche's philosophical thought topically. The papers in Part 4 treat issues in Nietzsche's value theory, ranging from his metaethical views as to what values are, to his own values of freedom and the overman, to his insistence on 'order of rank', and his social-political views. The fifth group of papers treat Nietzsche's epistemology and metaphysics, including such well-known ideas as his perspectivism, his INSERT: Included in Starkmann 40% promotion, September-October 2014 being, and his thought of eternal recurrence. Finally, Part 6 treats another famous idea-the will to power-as well as two linked ideas that he uses will to power to explain, the drives, and life. This Handbook will be a key resource for all scholars and advanced students who work on Nietzsche.

This exciting collection of papers is an international, ecumenical, and interdisciplinary study of Jesus' resurrection that emerged from the "Resurrection Summit" meeting held in New York at Easter of 1996. The contributions represent mainstream scholarship on biblical studies, fundamental theology, systematic theology, philosophy, moral theology, and homiletics. Contributors represent a wide range of viewpoints and denominations and include Richard Swinburne, Janet Martin Soskice, Peter F. Carnley, Sarah Coakley, Willian Lane Craig, William P. Alston, M. Shawn Copeland, Paul Rhodes Eddy, Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Brian V. Johnstone, Carey C. Newman, Alan G. Padgett, Pheme Perkins, Alan F. Segal, Marguerite Shuster, and John Wilkins. Combined, they offer a timely, wide ranging, and well balanced work on the central truth of Christianity."

Modern culture tends to separate medicine and miracles, but their histories are closely intertwined. The Roman Catholic Church recognizes saints through canonization based on evidence that they worked miracles, as signs of their proximity to God. Physicianhistorian Jacalyn Duffin has examined Vatican sources on 1400 miracles from six continents and spanning four centuries. Overwhelmingly the miracles cited in canonizations between 1588 and 1999 are healings, and the majority entail medical care and physician testimony.
These remarkable records contain intimate stories of illness, prayer, and treatment, as told by people who rarely leave traces: peasants and illiterates, men and women, old and young. A woman's breast tumor melts away; a man's wounds knit; a lame girl suddenly walks; a dead baby revives. Suspicious of wishful thinking or naive enthusiasm, skeptical clergy shaped the inquiries to identify recoveries that remain unexplained by the best doctors of the era. The tales of healing are supplemented with substantial testimony from these physicians.
Some elements of the miracles change through time. Duffin shows that doctors increase in number; new technologies are embraced quickly; diagnoses shift with altered capabilities. But other aspects of the miracles are stable. The narratives follow a dramatic structure, shaped by the formal questions asked of each witness and by perennial reactions to illness and healing. In this history, medicine and religion emerge as parallel endeavors aimed at deriving meaningful signs from particular instances of human distress -- signs to explain, alleviate, and console in confrontation with suffering and mortality.
A lively, sweeping analysis of a fascinating set of records, this book also poses an exciting methodological challenge to historians: miracle stories are a vital source not only on the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people, but also on medical science and its practitioners."

Karl Barth (1886-1968) was a prolific theologian of the 20th century. Dr Gorringe places the theology in its social and political context, from World War I through to the Cold War by following Barth's intellectual development through the years that saw the rise of national socialism and the development of communism. Barth initiated a theological revolution in his two "Commentaries on Romans", begun during World War I. His attempt to deepen this during the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic made him a focus of theological resistance to Hitler after the rise to power of the Nazi party. Expelled from Germany, he continued to defy fashionable opinion by refusing to condemn communism after World War II. Drawing on a German debate largely ignored by Anglo-Saxon theology, Dr Gorringe shows that Barth responds to the events of his time not just in his occasional writings, but in his magnum opus, the "Church Dogmatics". In conclusion Dr Gorringe asks what this admittedly patriarchal author still has to contribute to contemporary theology, and in particular human liberation. This book is intended for undergraduate courses in theology and history of doctrine.

This is an accessible response to the contemporary anti-God arguments of the 'new atheists' (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Grayling, etc). Atheism has become militant in the past few years, with its own popular mass media evangelists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. In this readable book, Christian philosopher Peter S. Williams considers the arguments of the 'new atheists' and finds them wanting. Williams explains the history of atheism and responds to the claims that: 'belief in God causes more harm than good'; 'religion is about blind faith and science is the only way to know things'; 'science can explain religion away'; 'there is not enough evidence for God'; 'the arguments for God's existence do not work'. Williams argues that belief in God is more intellectually plausible than atheism.

Engage students with the 'Philosophy of Religion' content for OCR A Level Religious Studies; build their knowledge, deepen their understanding and develop their skills using this accessible textbook, brought to you by subject specialists with examining experience and the leading A Level Religious Studies publisher and OCR's Publishing Partner. - Confidently cover the content your students need to know in an appropriate level of depth with this component textbook that has been written in light of what has been learned from from the first assessment - Enable students to develop and hone the AO2 skills they need, with Analyse and Evaluate tables in every topic outlining the key evaluation points - Help students of all ability levels to build their subject knowledge with key content explained clearly throughout using accessible language - Engage students with the content; each topic begins with a real-life example which puts the content into context and has discussion points throughout to get students actively thinking about key concepts - Encourage students to critically engage with challenging issues and ideas; core, stretch and challenge activities at the end of every topic help students to develop a comprehensive and nuanced understanding - Provide students with the opportunity to check their knowledge and practise exam questions with the 'Wrap-up' section at the end of each topic

"The Thoughtful Guide to God" presents a rational approach to notions of God and soul for those who are disenchanted with organized religion. Reviving concepts of the divine that go back to the earliest human civilizations of both East and West, it shows how ideas have evolved from early scriptural revelations, through the rationalization of the Greek philosophers, to the developments of modern physics. Few works bring together ideas from so many disciplines-from religion, philosophy and science, with all the supporting detail. Packed with references for further reading, it provides a bridge between science and religion, and between many of the different religions of the world. All the terms and concepts are explained so that they are accessible to the general reader. The discoveries of Newton and Galileo, through to Einstein and contemporary scientists, and the ideas of God from a number of Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Hindu thinkers, are presented with brief biographical background to put these personalities in context. Their thoughts are fused with those of Greek and later philosophers that have shaped society in Western Europe to provide a unifying concept of the divine as Communal Soul- a one-world view which it is essential should convince more of the population in the materialist West if Earth and humankind are to survive into the 22nd century.