|
Showing 1 - 6 of
6 matches in All Departments
* Explores and explains the approaches of a wide range of
interpreters - both ancient and modern
The NIV Application Commentary Ecclesiastes/Song of Songs.
Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs have always presented particular
challenges to their readers, especially if those readers are
seeking to understand them as part of Christian Scripture.
Ecclesiastes regularly challenges the reader as to grammar and
syntax. The interpretation even of words which occur frequently in
the book is often unclear and a matter of dispute, partly because
there is frequent word-play in the course of the argument. The
argument is itself complex and sometimes puzzling and has often
provoked the charge of inconsistency or outright
self-contradiction. When considered in the larger context of the
OT, Ecclesiastes stands out as an unusual book, whose connection
with the main stream of biblical tradition seems tenuous. We find
ourselves apparently reading about the meaninglessness of life and
the certainty of death in a universe in which God is certainly
present but is distant and somewhat uninvolved. When considered in
the context of the NT, the dissonance between Ecclesiastes and its
scriptural context seems even greater; for if there is one thing
that we do not find in this book, it is the joy of resurrection.
Perhaps this is one reason why Ecclesiastes is seldom read or
preached on in modern churches. The Song of Songs (also known as
the Song of Solomon) has been read, historically, by Christians, in
two primary ways---as a text which concerns the love and sexual
intimacy of human beings and as a text which uses the language of
human love and intimacy to speak of something else---the
relationship between Christ and the church. Christians have often
felt that they must choose between these options---that a text
about human love and sexual intimacy could not be at the same time
a spiritual text. It is one of the challenges of reading the Song
to explore how far this is necessarily true and how far Christian
readers have been influenced in their reading more by Platonism and
Gnosticism than by biblical thinking about the nature of the human
being and of human sexuality. Another challenge is to discover
whether the Song is really one song at all, or simply a haphazard
collection of shorter poems cast together because of their common
theme of love; and still another is to gain clarity on what,
precisely, is the connection between the Song and Solomon. This
commentary sets out to wrestle honestly with all the challenges of
reading these biblical books---the challenges of reading the texts
in themselves, and the challenges of reading them as intrinsic
parts of Christian Scripture. Using the standard structure of the
NIVAC series, it explores their original meaning, the bridging
contexts that enable their journey to the present, and their
contemporary significance. In the course of the exploration, these
books are seen to be deeply relevant in what they have to say both
to the contemporary church and the contemporary culture."
In 1517, Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of
Wittenberg's castle church. Luther's seemingly inconsequential act
ultimately launched the Reformation, a movement that
forevertransformed both the Church and Western culture. The
repositioning of the Bible as beginning, middle, and end of
Christian faith was crucial to the Reformation. Two words alone
captured this emphasis on the Bible's divine inspiration, its
abiding authority, and its clarity, efficacy, and sufficiency: sola
scriptura . In the five centuries since the Reformation, the
confidence Luther and the Reformers placed in the Bible has slowly
eroded. Enlightened modernity came to treat the Bible like any
other text, subjecting it to a near endless array of
historical-critical methods derived from the sciences and
philosophy. The result is that in many quarters of Protestantism
today the Bible as word has ceased to be the Word. In The
Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture , Iain Provan aims
to restore a Reformation-like confidence in the Bible by recovering
a Reformation-like reading strategy. To accomplish these aims
Provan first acknowledges the value in the Church's precritical
appropriation of the Bible and, then, in a chastened use of modern
and postmodern critical methods. But Provan resolutely returns to
the Reformers' affirmation of the centrality of the literal sense
of the text, in the Bible's original languages, for a right-minded
biblical interpretation. In the end the volume shows that it is
possible to arrive at an approach to biblical interpretation for
the twenty-first century that does not simply replicate the
Protestant hermeneutics of the sixteenth, but stands in fundamental
continuity with them. Such lavish attention to, and importance
placed upon, a seriously literal interpretation of Scripture is
appropriate to the Christian confession of the word as Wordathe one
God's Word for the one world.
The Old Testament is often maligned as an outmoded and even
dangerous text. Best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins, Karen
Armstrong, and Derrick Jensen are prime examples of those who find
the Old Testament to be problematic to modern sensibilities. Iain
Provan counters that such easy and popular readings misunderstand
the Old Testament. He opposes modern misconceptions of the Old
Testament by addressing ten fundamental questions that the biblical
text should--and according to Provan does--answer: questions such
as ""Who is God?"" and ""Why do evil and suffering mark the
world?"" By focusing on Genesis and drawing on other Old Testament
and extra-biblical sources, Seriously Dangerous Religion constructs
a more plausible reading. As it turns out, Provan argues, the Old
Testament is far more dangerous than modern critics even suppose.
Its dangers are the bold claims it makes upon its readers.
The contemporary world has been shaped by two important and potent
myths. Karl Jaspers' construct of the "axial age" envisions the
common past (800-200 BC), the time when Western society was born
and world religions spontaneously and independently appeared out of
a seemingly shared value set. Conversely, the myth of the "dark
green golden age," as narrated by David Suzuki and others, asserts
that the axial age and the otherworldliness that accompanied the
emergence of organized religion ripped society from a previously
deep communion with nature. Both myths contend that to maintain
balance we must return to the idealized past. In Convenient Myths ,
Iain Provan illuminates the influence of these two deeply
entrenched and questionable myths, warns of their potential
dangers, and forebodingly maps the implications of a world founded
on such myths.
|
You may like...
Poldark: Series 1-2
Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, …
Blu-ray disc
(1)
R53
Discovery Miles 530
|