Re Figuring Theology

Here is a rhetorical treatment of Karl Barth's early theology. Although scholars have long noted the rhetorical power of Barth's work, calling it volcanic and explosive, this book uses rhetoric to illuminate the peculiar nature of his prose. It displays a Barth whose prose is radically unstable and inseparable from his theological arguments. The author connects Barth's early theology to the Expressionism of the Weimar Republic. He develops an original theory of figures of speech, relying on the philosophies of Paul Ricoeur and Hayden White, to delve more deeply into the particular configurations of Barth's writings. Nietzsche's hyperbole and Kierkegaard's irony are examined as rhetorical precedents of Barth's style. The closing chapter surveys Barth's later, realistic theology and then suggests ways in which his earlier tropes, especially the figures of excess and self-negation, can serve to enable theology to speak today.

Here is a rhetorical treatment of Karl Barth’s early theology. Although scholars have long noted the rhetorical power of Barth’s work, calling it volcanic and explosive, this book uses rhetoric to illuminate the peculiar nature of his prose. It displays a Barth whose prose is radically unstable and inseparable from his theological arguments. The author connects Barth’s early theology to the Expressionism of the Weimar Republic. He develops an original theory of figures of speech, relying on the philosophies of Paul Ricoeur and Hayden White, to delve more deeply into the particular configurations of Barth’s writings. Nietzsche’s hyperbole and Kierkegaard’s irony are examined as rhetorical precedents of Barth‘s style. The closing chapter surveys Barth’s later, realistic theology and then suggests ways in which his earlier tropes, especially the figures of excess and self-negation, can serve to enable theology to speak today.

The Rāmāyana of Vālmīki is considered by many contemporary Hindus to be a foundational religious text. But this understanding is in part the result of a transformation of the epic’s receptive history, a hermeneutic project which challenged one characterization of the genre of the text, as a work of literary culture, and replaced it with another, as a work of remembered tradition. This book examines Rāmāyana commentaries, poetic retellings, and praise-poems produced by intellectuals within the Śrīvaisnava order of South India from 1250 to 1600 and shows how these intellectuals reconceptualized Rāma’s story through the lens of their devotional metaphysics. Śrīvaisnavas applied innovative interpretive techniques to the Rāmāyana, including allegorical reading, ślesa reading (reading a verse as a double entendre), and the application of vernacular performance techniques such as word play, improvisation, repetition, and novel forms of citation. The book is of interest not only to Rāmāyana specialists but also to those engaged with Indian intellectual history, literary studies, and the history of religions.

Grau reconsiders the relationship between "logos" and "mythos" as a precondition to opening theological hermeneutics to discourse from other cultures and genres, other modes of telling and retelling.

Paul Ricoeur is one of the most influential philosophers alive today. This book draws primarily on his hermeneutic insights to address the fundamental question of how reference, truth, and meaning are related in the discourse of theology. Fodor defends the view that theological truth claims cannot be sustained without some appeal to the referential, or in Rocoeur's terminology "refigurative," potential intrinsic to our linguistic practices. By bringing the philosophical work of Ricoeur into mutually critical conversation with theology, particularly that of Hans Frei, the book underscores the importance of reference in assessing theological claims.

Grau reconsiders the relationship between "logos" and "mythos" as a precondition to opening theological hermeneutics to discourse from other cultures and genres, other modes of telling and retelling.

"Critiques Alan Race's models of Christianity and world religions and offers an alternative based on the theological typology of Hans Frei"--

The thought of Paul Ricoeur continues its profound effect on theology, religious studies and biblical interpretation. The 28 papers contained in this volume constitute the most comprehensive overview of Ricoeur's writings in religion since 1970. Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation and his sensitivity to the mystery of religious language offer fresh insight to the transformative potential of sacred literature, including the Bible.