[PDF] Telling The Christian Story Differently eBook

Author : Francis Watson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 20,18 MB
Release : 2020-06-25
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0567679535

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This volume examines the 'counter-narratives' of the core Christian story, proposed by texts from Nag Hammadi and elsewhere. A noteworthy body of highly respected scholars examine material that is sometimes difficult and often overlooked, contributing to the ongoing effort to integrate Nag Hammadi and related literature into the mainstream of New Testament and early Christian studies. By retracing the major elements of the Christian story in sequence, they are able to discuss how and why each aspect was disputed on inner-Christian grounds, and to reflect on the different accounts of Christian identity underlying these disputes. Together the essays in this book address a central issue: towards the end of the second century, Irenaeus could claim that the overwhelming majority of Christians throughout the world were agreed on a version of the core Christian story which is still recognisable today. Yet, as Irenaeus concedes and as the Nag Hammadi texts have confirmed, there were many who wished to tell the core Christian story differently. Those who criticized and rejected the standard story did so not because they were adherents of another religion, 'Gnosticism', but because they were Christians who believed that the standard account was wrong at point after point. Ranging from the Gospels of Judas and Mary to Galatians and Ptolemy's Letter to Flora, this volume provides a fascinating analysis of how the Christian story as we know it today developed against counter-readings from other early Christian traditions.

Author : Barbara R. Rossing
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 242 pages
File Size : 10,25 MB
Release : 2007-03-30
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0465004962

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The idea of "The Rapture" -- the return of Christ to rescue and deliver Christians off the earth -- is an extremely popular interpretation of the Bible's Book of Revelation and a jumping-off point for the best-selling "Left Behind" series of books. This interpretation, based on a psychology of fear and destruction, guides the daily acts of thousands if not millions of people worldwide. In The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing argues that this script for the world's future is nothing more than a disingenuous distortion of the Bible. The truth, Rossing argues, is that Revelation offers a vision of God's healing love for the world. The Rapture Exposed reclaims Christianity from fundamentalists' destructive reading of the biblical story and back into God's beloved community.

Author : Elizabeth Newman
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 15,23 MB
Release : 2012-10-18
Category : Religion
ISBN : 162189472X

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The disunity of the church is a social and theological scandal for it betrays the prayer of Jesus that we "will be one . . . so that the world will believe" (John 17:21). As a Baptist whose academic background focused on the Orthodox Church and whose teaching has included Catholic and Protestant contexts, this division is for Elizabeth Newman personal and professional. Attending to the Wounds on Christ's Body rests on the conviction that the broad tradition of Christianity already contains resources to heal the church, namely the saints of the church. Newman examines especially how Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) speaks to the whole church today in the midst of political, economic, and ecclesial brokenness. Teresa's reliance upon three scriptural figures--dwellings, marriage, and pilgrimage--helps make sense of an ecclesial way of life that is inherently unitive, a unity that stands in contrast to that of the nation-state or the global market. Teresa's scriptural journey offers an alternative at once liturgical, political, and economic. This Doctor of the Church provides "medicine" that can repair wounds of division that separate brothers and sisters in Christ.

Author : Amy-Jill Levine
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 526 pages
File Size : 16,66 MB
Release : 2020-10-27
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0062560174

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The editors of The Jewish Annotated New Testament show how and why Jews and Christians read many of the same Biblical texts – including passages from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Psalms – differently. Exploring and explaining these diverse perspectives, they reveal more clearly Scripture’s beauty and power. Esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Passages include the creation of the world, the role of Adam and Eve, the Suffering Servant of Isiah, the book of Jonah, and Psalm 22, whose words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” Jesus quotes as he dies on the cross. Comparing various interpretations – historical, literary, and theological - of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives. They show how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, and so illuminate the Bible’s ongoing significance. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings, it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all readers.

Author : Gary Chartier
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
Page : 307 pages
File Size : 49,71 MB
Release : 2015-11-09
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1845406761

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This book offers an overview of Christian theology organized around the twin themes of divine and human love. The book covers the traditional theological topics as well as basic questions of theological method. It seeks to integrate a focus on love throughout. While love is regularly canvassed as a dominant theme in Christian thought, it has rarely been the focus of Christian theological construction or a constraint on theological formulation. The book seeks to suggest, chapter by chapter, how a given topic relates to the broad theme of love.The book is written in a way designed to make it accessible to university students and educated laypersons. At the same time, it takes positions on controverted scholarly issues, and the methodological approach outlined at the beginning will be of interest to academic theologians.

Author : George Thomas Kurian
Publisher : Scarecrow Press
Page : 734 pages
File Size : 44,11 MB
Release : 2010-04-16
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0810872838

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The written word is one of the defining elements of Christian experience. As vigorous in the 1st century as it is in the 21st, Christian literature has had a significant function in history, and teachers and students need to be reminded of this powerful literary legacy. Covering 2,000 years, The Encyclopedia of Christian Literature is the first encyclopedia devoted to Christian writers and books. In addition to an overview of the Christian literature, this two-volume set also includes 40 essays on the principal genres of Christian literature and more than 400 bio-bibliographical essays describing the principal writers and their works. These essays examine the evolution of Christian thought as reflected in the literature of every age. The companion volume also features bibliographies, an index, a timeline of Christian Literature, and a list of the greatest Christian authors. The encyclopedia will appeal not only to scholars and Christian evangelicals, but students and teachers in seminaries and theological schools, as well as to the growing body of Christian readers and bibliophiles.

Author : Karl Allen Kuhn
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 32,41 MB
Release : 2020-08-31
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1725266989

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Reading the Bible Badly exposes how American Christians misunderstand and misuse the Bible, reading Scripture through “lenses” that distort its true character. As Americans, we often read the Bible’s stories and instruction unmindful of their historical and cultural settings, disregarding the testimony of our spiritual ancestors, and finding mostly a mirror image of our own values and selves in Scripture. Some of us insist that the Bible must be the “inerrant word of God,” historically factual in every way and doctrinally infallible, and overlook so much of what makes Scripture beautiful and relevant. Others follow a lectionary that dices and splices Scripture into bite-size morsels for Sunday worship, divorces passages from their biblical settings, strikes verses deemed offensive, and undermines the literary artistry that is the lifeblood of Scripture’s profound revelation. Many of us read the Bible in fear, warping our witness to Jesus and tragically neglecting Scripture’s ever-persistent call to compassion, hospitality, and love. We come to the Bible looking for simple rules that affirm our sense of right and wrong, while missing the point of what Jesus taught about wisdom and true righteousness. Reading the Bible Badly challenges Christians to set aside their misaligned lenses, that they may encounter the Bible more fully and faithfully.

Author : Melvin Bray
Publisher : Chalice Press
Page : 293 pages
File Size : 21,3 MB
Release : 2017-02-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0827203098

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What if we could actually change the world by telling better stories? What if the world we have-with its racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, religious hatred, ecological disregard-is exactly the world we have spun into existence through the stories we have told? In his new book, Melvin Bray insists that a better world is possible if the stories around which we organize our lives begin to match the beauty we imagine is possible. Bray puts forth his own daring yet faithful reimaginings of classic faith stories that inspire more beautiful, more just, more virtue-filled ways of being in the world. Better offers a spiritual path on which people-for whom life has called into question many of their assumptions about God and the world-can continue to hold onto their faith, while joining others of goodwill in seeking sustainable, cooperative, and courageous answers to the seemingly intractable problems of our time.

Author : Robert J. Hater
Publisher : Twenty-Third Publications
Page : 132 pages
File Size : 36,96 MB
Release : 2006
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781585955527

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Father Robert Hater strongly believes that ?story without basic belief lacks direction, and basic belief without story is lifeless.? He illustrates this relationship between story and Catholic belief with sensitive and powerful narratives, including the account of his own mother's death and its impact on him. This is an invaluable resource for anyone involved in conveying the story of Jesus and the church: pastors, homilists, catechetical leaders, catechists and teachers, parish ministers, and families, as well as all who wish to find God in their own stories.