Critics Of The Bible 1724 1873

This is the only available collection of biblical criticism from this period. The process whereby the 'Holy Scriptures' became the object of human critique independent of church control, is illustrated in the present volume with excerpts from such famous critics as Coleridge, Bake and Matthew Arnold, as well as Collins and Deist and Bishop Sherlock.

As individuals, we have the ability (although not always the opportunity) to create our own paradigmatic image of the Divine; moreover, as a society we can alter, transform, or even replace those paradigms. Progressive movements exist in nearly every faith tradition—moving towards the future of our world and our belief systems; these movements include both radical and reformist thinkers, and they are challenging the lenses that we employ to image, worship, connect with and understand the Divine. With so many possible interpretations and paradigms competing for social acceptance and support, the choice must be made carefully and wisely, bearing in mind the inevitability of change whilst remaining open to pluralities of thought and practice. This is especially important when it comes to the future of theology and religious studies—in particular to the relations between the various global faith traditions. In Testing the Boundaries, ten scholars explore the praxis of faith including our image of Self in relation to the Divine, our relation to the religious Other, our struggle for religious identity in new locales, the limits of language and translations in sacred texts, our responsibility to nature, our nomadic and transitory tendencies, traditions in the academy, and our interreligious relationships. They test the boundaries of traditional theology and their interdisciplinary fields—dancing in the liminal space where possibilities gather.

In Between Biblical Criticism and Poetic Rewriting, Samuel Tongue offers an account of the aesthetic and critical tensions inherent in the development of the Higher Criticism of the Bible. Different ‘types’ of Bible are created through the intellectual and literary pressures of Enlightenment and Romanticism and, as Tongue suggests, it is this legacy that continues to orientate the approaches deemed legitimate in biblical scholarship. Using a number of ancient and contemporary critical and poetic rewritings of Jacob’s struggle with the ‘angel’ (Gen 32:22-32), Tongue makes use of postmodern theories of textual production to argue that it is the ‘paragesis’, a parasitical form of writing between disciplines, that best foregrounds the complex performativity of biblical interpretation.

This work, the first of its kind, describes all the aspects of the Bible revolution in Jewish history in the last two hundred years, as well as the emergence of the new biblical culture. It describes the circumstances and processes that turned Holy Scripture into the Book of Books and into the history of the biblical period and of the people – the Jewish people. It deals with the encounter of the Jews with modern biblical criticism and the archaeological research of the Ancient Near East and with contemporary archaeology. The middle section discusses the extensive involvement of educated Jews in the Bible-Babel polemic at the start of the twentieth century, which it treats as a typological event. The last section describes at length various aspects of the key status assigned to the Bible in the new Jewish culture in Europe, and particularly in modern Jewish Palestine, as a “guide to life” in education, culture and politics, as well as part of the attempt to create a new Jewish man, and as a source of inspiration for various creative arts.

Scholars have long recognised that Jonathan Edwards loved the Bible. But preoccupation with his role in Western 'public' life and letters has resulted in a failure to see the significance of his biblical exegesis. Douglas A. Sweeney offers a comprehensive history of Edwards' interpretation of the Bible.

A comprehensive and accessible guide to the Hebrew Bible This book brings together some of the world's most exciting scholars from across a variety of disciplines to provide a concise and accessible guide to the Hebrew Bible. It covers every major genre of book in the Old Testament together with in-depth discussions of major themes such as human nature, covenant, creation, ethics, ritual and purity, sacred space, and monotheism. This authoritative overview sets each book within its historical and cultural context in the ancient Near East, paying special attention to its sociological setting. It provides new insights into the reception of the books and the different ways they have been studied, from historical-critical enquiry to modern advocacy approaches such as feminism and liberation theology. It also includes a guide to biblical translations and textual criticism and helpful suggestions for further reading. Featuring contributions from experts with backgrounds in the Jewish and Christian faith traditions as well as secular scholars in the humanities and social sciences, The Hebrew Bible is the perfect starting place for anyone seeking a user-friendly introduction to the Old Testament, and an invaluable reference book for students and teachers.

Details the impact of the critical-historical method on the thought and biblical interpretation of Jonathan Edwards