Do people know about God just by being human beings? Or do they need special divine assistance, through the Bible and the church? Natural theology was long accepted as a basic ingredient in all theology, but in the twentieth century it was rejected by important theologians, especially Karl Barth. His views denied all natural theology and placed greater emphasis on the Bible. But what if the Bible itself uses, depends on, and supports natural theology? Professor Barr here pursues these questions within the Bible itself and within the history of ideas, earlier and more recent; and he looks at...

Part of The Hensley Henson Lectures for 1997 delivered to the University of Oxford.
Focusing on the Old Testament and the history of Israel, this book brings together aspects of controversy about the Bible at the end of the millennium. Author James Barr examines the nature of biblical narrative, asking whether the Bible expresses actual historical events or the ideological and religious aspirations of writers in much later times.

A major overview and provocative analysis from a premier Old Testament scholar.

Part of The Hensley Henson Lectures for 1997 delivered to the University of Oxford.
Focusing on the Old Testament and the history of Israel, this book brings together aspects of controversy about the Bible at the end of the millennium. Author James Barr examines the nature of biblical narrative, asking whether the Bible expresses actual historical events or the ideological and religious aspirations of writers in much later times.

James Barr was one of the most formidable biblical scholars of the late twentieth century. His prolific writings on text and philosophy, Bible and interpretation, as well as many other subjects, add to his formidable stature in scholarship, while his book Fundamentalism (1977) remains perhaps the most trenchant critical analysis and rebuttal of that approach to the Bible ever produced vy a scholar. The Scope and Authority of the Bible brings together seven essays that are representative of the author's style, approach to and outlook on contemporary biblical topics. Characterised throughout by...

he problems which Professor Barr examines have been borne in upon him over the years as a teacher of Old Testament to theological students, but more recently by active participation in a variety of international and ecumenical colloquia where the Bible as a whole has been under discussion... As we should expect, he asks us to consider what we mean by words like 'inspiration', 'authority', 'the Word of God', 'revelation', and devotes chapters to the Bible as Literature, the Bible as Information and the Bible in Theology. Dr Barr argues for the possibility of a multiplicity of theologies, but...

James Barr has never been an uncontroversial writer, and this book, eirenic though its purpose was, has proved no exception. It was widely noticed on its first appearance and led to a lively discussion, not least in evangelical circles. At the same time it was welcomed by reviwers as an important contribution to the nature of biblical criticism. 'This books breaks much new ground, ' said British Book News, 'and will be welcomed by many who are interested in the intellectual basis of a biblical faith. Indeed, it is a measure of the author's coverage and penetration of a variety of issues that...

Behind the academic and innocently descriptive title of this book is to be found one of the most explosive works of biblical scholarship to be published this century. Certainly many of those who read it on its firs appearance were never the same again, and it signalled the end of what had hitherto been a flourishing literature on 'biblical theology'. 'In recent years, ' Professor Bar wrote in his Preface, have come to believe that one of the greatest dangers to sound and adequate interpretation of the Bible comes from the prevailing use of procedu, which, while claiming to rest upon a...