Advances the thesis that Luther's teaching on faith and love operates as the overriding thematic pair in the dynamics of Christ and the law - structurally and conceptually under girding the 1535 Galatians commentary.

Theological interest in art is at a premium. However, theological engagement with art is often enacted without a clear sense of method. This text argues for a theological methodology in engaging the arts, and, specifically, the author puts forward a theological model for understanding human creativity in the light of Jesus' sacrificial redemption. In dialogue with theology, philosophy, psychology, and art theory, the author establishes the relevance and applicability of an incarnational and sacrificial model of human creativity. Theological models also do more than provide a conceptual...

Moltmann has been interested in the ecclesial and societal consequences of systematic theology. From his first major work, Theology of Hope, to his book Experiences in Theology, he has devoted substantive space to what each particular doctrine means for our life in this world, as individuals and as a community. The Transformative Church explores these concerns more deeply, looking at each of his major texts and highlighting themes relevant for a transformative ecclesiology. These themes are augmented by adding the perspectives of a contemporary church movement that reflects, in its practices,...

In failing to take the sacramentality of the word of God seriously, the preaching of the church has suffered negative consequences. As a result, preaching has often become, at best, a form of instruction or, at worst, an incantation of sorts rather than an integral part of deepening our relationship with Christ by functioning sacramentally to bring about divine participation with Jesus' corporeal humanity in his living word. In order to recover this sacramental reality, this volume argues that one should consider the annunciation to Mary where, with the sermon of Gabriel, the corporeal Christ...

Illnesses are perceived and understood differently across cultures and over time. Traditional interpretations of New Testament texts frame the affliction lepra ("leprosy") as addressed either by ritual cleansing or miraculous healing. But as Pamela Shellberg shows, these interpretations are limited because they shift modern ideas of "leprosy" to a first-century context without regard for how the ancients themselves thought about lepra. Reading ancient medical texts, Shellberg describes how Luke might have perceived lepra and used the language of "clean" and "unclean" and demonstrates how...

Mark A. Jason offers a detailed investigation of the place of repentance in the Dead Sea Scrolls, addressing a significant lacuna in Qumran scholarship. Jason establishes the importance of repentance as a fundamental way of structuring and describing religious experience within the Qumran community. Jason shows that repentance was a central and decisive element in shaping that community's identity and undergirded its religous experience from the start. Comparison with relevant texts from the Apocrypha and pseudepigrapha shows that the Qumran community represented a distinctive penitential...

Biblical scholars have often contrasted the exegesis of the early church fathers from the eastern region and "school" of Syrian Antioch against that of the school of Alexandria. The Antiochenes have often been described as strictly historical-literal exegetes in contrast to the allegorical exegesis of the Alexandrians. Patristic scholars now challenge those stereotypes, some even arguing that few differences existed between the two groups. This work agrees that both schools were concerned with a literal and spiritual reading. But, it also tries to show, through analysis of Theodore and...

Questions surrounding the relationship of Scripture and doctrine are legion within the Protestant tradition. This study is an apologetic for the ongoing, constructive theological task in Protestant and Evangelical traditions. It suggests that doctrinal development can be explained as a hermeneutical phenomenon and that insights from hermeneutical philosophy and the philosophy of language can aid theologians in constructing explanatory theses for particular theological problems associated with the facts of doctrinal development, namely, questions related to textual authority, reality...

The theology of Karl Barth is an important resource for theological reflection on the problem of God's relationship to time. This book argues that a proper comprehension of Barth's theological conception of time and eternity is best achieved by understanding three important contexts: the doctrinal, the conceptual, and the developmental.

The foundation of the modern State of Israel in 1948 is commemorated by many Palestinians as a day of catastrophe. The author intends to outline a possible hermeneutic that does not disregard the concerns of the respective religious communities without writing off the Old Testament prematurely.