Product Description: Historical Critical Analysis is the main way in which the Bible (both the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament) has been examined and read by scholars in the last century. The term refers to a range of methodologies which examine the origins of biblical texts, in relation to other contemporaneous texts, to form critical approaches and to questions of authorship, audience and authenticty...read more

Reading the Bible aims to provide a comprehensive, readable, and accessible guide to the diverse methods of biblical interpretation. The book falls into two parts. Part One 'What is Biblical Interpretation?' deals with basic issues concerning the interpretation of texts. What is interpretation? How do we understand any form of communication? What does 'meaning' mean, what does it mean for a text to have meaning, and how do we identify its meaning? Part One of the book also discusses the role of 'preunderstanding', i.e., the way our cultural background and personal interests affects the way we read texts. Attention is paid to the problem of cultural and temporal time-gap. How can we make sense of texts written in different cultures and epochs from our own? How can ancient texts be made relevant and meaningful for people living in the early twenty-first century? A further concern in this chapter is to introduce readers to such technical terms such as 'hermeneutics,' 'exegesis' and 'eisegesis,' 'semiotics,' and diachronic and synchronic approaches to the interpretation of texts.Part Two, which forms the bulk of the book, provides a description of the main theories of biblical interpretation. Each chapter is divided into the following sections: definition, presuppositions, a brief history of the method, the principles of the method, and evaluation. There then follows a section entitled 'The (Respective) Method in Action', which provides examples of the practical application of each method to the same two Old Testament and New Testament texts (Gen. 2.4b-3.24; Matt. 15.21-28). By seeing the different results that arise from applying the various methods to the same two texts, readers will gain a clear idea of how a particular method works and how it is distinct from other methods.

Product Description: Law develops his theory of inspiration starting with texts as varied as Virgil's Aeneid and Shakespeare's plays before focusing on the Bible. Following Karl Jaspers, Law views all human knowledge as having limits beyond which there exists the Transcendent...read more

The influential German theologian recounts his life and career, describes his first encounter with death as a child, and reminisces about his friendships with Karl Barth, Konrad Adenauer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Helmut Kohl