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This engrossing book demonstrates that the "cradle" (James Barr) of biblical criticism really lay in the English-speaking world and that subsequent problems actually began in England in the period between the Reformation and the Enlightenment. During this time, attempts were still being made on a regular basis to reconcile the content of the Bible with the questioning of it which was evolving as the result of new scientific discoveries and the development of new moral criteria. In this interdisciplinary study, Professor Reventlow leads the reader into the total context of the life and thought in which new ideas about the Bible came to birth. Beginning with the insights of early humanism and the spiritualist movements of the Reformation, and moving through the Puritans to a climax with the Deists, Reventlow traces the fascinating and complex history of biblical criticism, always emphasizing the close connection between theology, philosophical systems, and church politics. He illuminates the significance of the intellectual and constitutional development in England for the modern understanding of the Bible, and conversely, he highlights the role of the Bible in that development. The importance of this book is threefold. It is historical. It gives us insight into the way biblical understanding is achieved. And it helps us "understand how we ourselves work and think" (James Barr). If we are to answer the theological questions of our time, it is Reventlow's contention that the reply must "pioneer its way out of its past." For "only a careful survey of the way we have come so far can clarify existing intrinsic presuppositions and help us to overcome them by making us aware of them." -- from back cover.
Here, Anthony Thiselton brings together his encyclopedic knowledge of hermeneutics and his nearly four decades of teaching on the subject to provide an ideal textbook which takes the reader through the time-honoured interpretation techniques of the past and on to modern times.
All of our attempts to find the historical backgrounds to texts have led us to believe that we have "figured out" the Bible. Steering a course between modernity's obsession with historical readings and fundamentalism's compulsion for ahistorical readings, Christopher Seitz recovers a figural/typological approach to both the Old and New Testament that shapes a theological understanding of Scripture. Figured Out examines the loss of figural assumptions and models another way forward.
An examination of the role played by the Bible in the emergence of natural science.
A literary history of our most influential book of all time, by an Oxford scholar and Anglican priest In our culture, the Bible is monolithic: It is a collection of books that has been unchanged and unchallenged since the earliest days of the Christian church. The idea of the Bible as "Holy Scripture," a non-negotiable authority straight from God, has prevailed in Western society for some time. And while it provides a firm foundation for centuries of Christian teaching, it denies the depth, variety, and richness of this fascinating text. In A History of the Bible, John Barton argues that the Bible is not a prescription to a complete, fixed religious system, but rather a product of a long and intriguing process, which has inspired Judaism and Christianity, but still does not describe the whole of either religion. Barton shows how the Bible is indeed an important source of religious insight for Jews and Christians alike, yet argues that it must be read in its historical context--from its beginnings in myth and folklore to its many interpretations throughout the centuries. It is a book full of narratives, laws, proverbs, prophecies, poems, and letters, each with their own character and origin stories. Barton explains how and by whom these disparate pieces were written, how they were canonized (and which ones weren't), and how they were assembled, disseminated, and interpreted around the world--and, importantly, to what effect. Ultimately, A History of the Bible argues that a thorough understanding of the history and context of its writing encourages religious communities to move away from the Bible's literal wording--which is impossible to determine--and focus instead on the broader meanings of scripture.
Early Americans claimed that they looked to "the Bible alone" for authority, but the Bible was never, ever alone. Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States is a wide-ranging exploration of the place of the Christian Bible in America in the decades after the Revolution. Attending to both theoretical concerns about the nature of scriptures and to the precise historical circumstances of a formative period in American history, Seth Perry argues that the Bible was not a "source" of authority in early America, as is often said, but rather a site of authority: a cultural space for editors, commentators, publishers, preachers, and readers to cultivate authoritative relationships. While paying careful attention to early national bibles as material objects, Perry shows that "the Bible" is both a text and a set of relationships sustained by a universe of cultural practices and assumptions. Moreover, he demonstrates that Bible culture underwent rapid and fundamental changes in the early nineteenth century as a result of developments in technology, politics, and religious life. At the heart of the book are typical Bible readers, otherwise unknown today, and better-known figures such as Zilpha Elaw, Joseph Smith, Denmark Vesey, and Ellen White, a group that includes men and women, enslaved and free, Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists, Mormons, Presbyterians, and Quakers. What they shared were practices of biblical citation in writing, speech, and the performance of their daily lives. While such citation contributed to the Bible's authority, it also meant that the meaning of the Bible constantly evolved as Americans applied it to new circumstances and identities.
Covers the effects of the Bible on the West from the Reformation to the publication of the New English Bible.
A professor of religion offers an “engrossing and excellent” look at how the Good Book has changed—and changed the world—through the ages (Publishers Weekly, starred review). In a lively journey from early Christianity to the present, this book explores how a box of handwritten scrolls became the Bible, and how the multibillion-dollar business that has brought us Biblezines and Manga Bibles is selling down the Book’s sacred capital. Showing us how a single official text was created from the proliferation of different scripts, Timothy Beal traces its path as it became embraced as the word of God and the Book of books. Christianity thrived for centuries without any Bible—there was no official canon of scriptures, much less a book big enough to hold them all. Congregations used various collections of scrolls and codices. As the author reveals, there is no “original” Bible, no single source text behind the thousands of different editions on the market today. The farther we go back in the holy text’s history, the more versions we find. In calling for a fresh understanding of the ways scriptures were used in the past, the author of Biblical Literacy offers the chance to rediscover a Bible, and a faith, that is truer to its own history—not a book of answers, but a library of questions.
Frampton reassesses Spinoza's relationship to higher criticism by drawing attention to the emergence of historical-critical investigations of the Bible from among heterodox Protestants during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.