front cover of A Biblical Path to the Triune God
A Biblical Path to the Triune God
Jesus, Paul and the Revelation of the Trinity
Denis Farkasfalvy
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
This short volume, finished just before Denis Farkasfalvy’s death in 2020, serves effectively as his last theological testament. Throughout his scholarly career, Farkasfalvy aimed to reconcile and unite theological disciplines that had increasingly become isolated from each other, most notably the biblical, patristic, and systematic. In A Biblical Path to the Triune God, the Cistercian abbot identifies the earliest biblical witnesses to the Church’s teaching about God, formulated at the Council of Nicaea, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ famous praise of the Father, found almost word-for-word in Matthew 11:25-27 and Luke 10:21-22, is Farkasfalvy’s point of departure for his bold assertion that in the earliest sources, we find abundant evidence that “it was not Jesus who revealed his own divine sonship; rather, the Father revealed it to those whom Jesus had chosen and were open to respond in faith.” Farkasfalvy demonstrates that Jesus reveals his relationship to the Father in terms of intimate and experiential knowledge, transforming the procreative metaphor of filiation from the physical (as in the Psalms and 2 Samuel 7) to the epistemological realm of knowledge, what he calls “love within cognitive dimensions.” Just decades after Jesus’ ministry, numerous independent apostolic witnesses, from the Synoptic Gospels and John to Paul (especially Romans 1:1-4 and Galatians 1:15-16), indicate a robust and widespread understanding of the Father’s self-disclosure in Jesus the Son. Farkasfalvy concludes his brief but intense reflection by outlining how a single organic process of revelation binds together the Father and the Son, and then extends that loving communion to believers in the Spirit, a communion made possible only by the incarnate Son’s crucifixion and subsequent glorification. This book accomplishes the admirable feat of showing that far from being the invention of later centuries, the Trinitarian doctrine of the Church is firmly rooted in the very first reflections on Jesus’ ministry and mystery by the biblical authors.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Bring Out Your Dead
The Past as Revelation
Anthony Grafton
Harvard University Press, 2001
The work of the Renaissance humanists comes to life in Anthony Grafton’s exploration of the primary sources and modern scholarship, classical and modern elements in the world of European letters from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.Tracing the ties that bound the world of humanistic learning in early modern Europe to other social and cultural spheres, Grafton defines the current state of the art of scholarship on early modern European cultural and intellectual history while simultaneously demonstrating how entertaining, enlightening, and relevant that history can be.Covering a dazzling variety of topics and authors as different as Alberti and Descartes, Grafton maps the grand and meticulous efforts of the past to connect the realm of nature with that of books, the realm of everyday experience with that of passionate reading in massive tomes, and the realm of codes of etiquette and institutions with that of extravagant and joyous erudition—efforts that this book itself brilliantly carries on.
[more]

front cover of Catechesis for the New Evangelization
Catechesis for the New Evangelization
Vatican II, John Paul II, and the Unity of Revelation and Experience
Brian Pedraza
Catholic University of America Press, 2020
Popes Francis, Benedict XVI, and John Paul II have called the present a time of New Evangelization for the Church and have stressed the importance of catechesis for this mission. John Paul II claimed that this renewal of the Church’s mission is grounded in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. Nevertheless, approaches to catechesis in the conciliar and postconciliar era have varied greatly, as evidenced by the shifts in catechetical practice effected by the modern catechetical movement. Just as the dominant forms of theology changed from neo-scholastic to anthropological approaches so, too, did catechesis move from catechism-based approaches to more anthropological models based upon human experience. In light of this context, Catechesis for the New Evangelization examines the theological foundations of catechesis in the Church’s understanding of divine revelation and its reception by the human person, especially as found in the conciliar constitutions, Dei Verbum and Gaudium et Spes. After drawing norms on divine revelation from these documents, it traces the history of the modern catechetical movement in order to compare this history with the conciliar norms, highlighting the renewal’s strengths and weaknesses. These steps prepare the way for the main part of the book: an examination of the anthropology of Karol Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II. Ultimately, his anthropology provides an understanding of the person that can unite divine revelation and human experience in a way that takes what is best from the modern catechetical movement, while developing the ministry in a way that can be fruitful for the New Evangelization. Pedraza’s book is not only an incisive look at modern catechetical history and theory. It also touches upon some of the most important theological topics of the past century, including the neo-scholastic crisis, the proper interpretation of the Council, the relationship of nature and grace, and the modern understanding of the imago dei, with the research and competency appropriate for scholarly interest and the accessibility needed for educated practitioners in catechesis.
[more]

front cover of The Center is Jesus Christ Himself
The Center is Jesus Christ Himself
Essays on Revelation, Salvation, and Evangelization in Honor of Robert P. Imbelli
Andrew Meszaros
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
The polarization in the Church today can be traced back to a more fundamental crisis in theology, one which has failed to connect our mundane experiences and the mysteries of the Christian faith with the person of Jesus Christ. Ecclesial discourse on the so-called ‘hot- button issues’ of the day too often take place without considering the foundation and goal of the Church. And this is unfortunately due to a similar tendency in the academic theology that informs that ecclesial discourse. In short, much of post-conciliar Catholic theology is adrift, floating aimlessly away from the center of the Christian faith, who is Christ. The Center is Jesus Christ Himself is a collection of essays which anchor theological reflection in Jesus Christ. These diverse essays share a unified focal point, but engage with a variety of theological subdisciplines (e.g., dogmatic, moral, Biblical, etc.), areas (e.g., Christology, Pneumatology, missiology, etc.), and periods (e.g., patristic, medieval, and modern). Given the different combinations of sub-disciplines, areas, and periods, theology is susceptible to fragmentation when it is not held together by some principle of unity. A theology in which the person of Jesus Christ serves as that principle of unity is a Christocentric theology. Together, the essays illustrate not only what Christocentric theology looks like, but also what the consequences are when Christ is dislodged from the center, whether by a conspicuous silence on, or by a relativization of, his unique salvific mission. The volume is published in honor of Emeritus Professor of Systematic Theology at Boston College, Rev. Dr. Robert P. Imbelli, who dedicated his teaching and writing to bringing Christ back to the center of Catholic theological discourse.
[more]

front cover of Commentary on the Apocalypse
Commentary on the Apocalypse
Andrew of Caesarea
Catholic University of America Press, 2012
Striking a balance between the symbolic language of the book and its literal, prophetic fulfillment, Andrew?s interpretation is a remarkably intelligent, spiritual, and thoughtful commentary that encourages the pursuit of virtue and confidence in the love of God for humanity
[more]

front cover of Commentary on the Apocalypse
Commentary on the Apocalypse
John N. Oecumenius
Catholic University of America Press, 2006
No description available
[more]

front cover of Communicating the Word
Communicating the Word
Revelation, Translation, and Interpretation in Christianity and Islam
David Marshall, Editor. Afterword by Archbishop Rowan Williams
Georgetown University Press, 2015

Communicating the Word is a record of the 2008 Building Bridges seminar, an annual dialogue between leading Christian and Muslim scholars convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Featuring the insights of internationally known Christian and Muslim scholars, the essays collected here focus attention on key scriptural texts but also engage with both classical and contemporary Islamic and Christian thought. Issues addressed include, among others, the different ways in which Christians and Muslims think of their scriptures as the “Word of God,” the possibilities and challenges of translating scripture, and the methods—and conflicts—involved in interpreting scripture in the past and today.

In his concluding reflections, Archbishop Rowan Williams draws attention to a fundamental point emerging from these fascinating contributions: “Islam and Christianity alike give a high valuation to the conviction that God speaks to us. Grasping what that does and does not mean . . . is challenging theological work.”

[more]

front cover of Continuing Revelation
Continuing Revelation
Essays on Doctrine
Bryan Buchanan
Signature Books, 2021

Determining what is and what is not Mormon doctrine is a difficult endeavor. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embraces four books of scripture as its canon, but also believes the church is led by a living prophet. Additions to the canon have been rare since the death of church founder Joseph Smith. Joseph Fielding Smith, tenth church president, said that if the prophet ever contradicts canon, canon prevails. On the other hand, Ezra Taft Benson, the church’s thirteenth president, said that the living prophet’s words are more important than cannon. Such messages create no shortage of confusion among church members. 

The question “What is doctrine?” opens the door for theologians and historians to wrestle over the answer, and to do so thoughtfully and insightfully. In Continuing Revelation, editor Bryan Buchanan has compiled essays that seek greater understanding about what doctrine is and why it matters. 

The Challenge of Defining LDS Doctrine, by Loyd Isao Ericson • LDS Theology and the Omnis: The Dangers of Theological Speculation, by David H. Bailey • Crawling out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution, by Steven L. Peck • “To Destroy the Agency of Man”: The War in Heaven in LDS Thought, by Boyd Petersen • Three Sub-Degrees in the Celestial Kingdom?, by Shannon P. Flynn • Heavenly Mother: The Mother of All Women, by Blaire Ostler • Mormonism and the Problem of Heterodoxy, by Kelli D. Potter • Women at the Gates of Mortality: Relief Society Birth and Death Rituals, by Susanna Morrill • “Shake Off the Dust of Thy Feet”: The Rise and Fall of Mormon Ritual Cursing, by Samuel R. Weber • “Satan Mourns Naked Upon the Earth: Locating Mormon Possession and Exorcism Rituals in the American Religious Landscape, 1830–1977, by Stephen C. Taysom

[more]

front cover of Divine Speech in Human Words
Divine Speech in Human Words
Thomistic Engagements with Scripture
Emmanuel Durand, OP
Catholic University of America Press, 2022
Is the portrait of God revealed in Scripture fundamentally intelligible? The biblical accounts of God reveal seemingly contradictory themes: God’s holiness and narratives telling of his anger; the Divine Omnipotence faced with the Impossible; the suffering Christ upon the Cross and the transcendent Trinity of Persons in God; the unique Savior and the universality of God’s salvific will; and so forth. How are we to hold together all of this data without denying any aspect of the mystery of God? Must we give into our ambient culture’s sense that the biblical God cannot be taken seriously by truly discerning and rational minds when they try to understand “the Divine”? Or, in the midst of this apparent contradiction, can we find the lines of harmony in the revealed mysteries? In Divine Speech in Human Words, Fr. Emmanuel Durand unties some of the knots that face us when we reflect on the God of biblical Revelation. In each of the essays gathered here, Fr. Durand sympathetically articulates the tensions and apparent contradictions experienced by contemporary minds as they strive to understand the revealed truth of God. A whole host of topics are covered in this volume: the Cross and the revelation of the Trinity; God’s holiness and transcendence; divine immutability and the sorrow of a loving God; Divine Providence and human prayer; the fatherhood of God and eschatology; Christ’s way of life; and many others. Drawing philosophical insights from the Thomistic tradition as his intellectual tools, Fr. Durand nonetheless emphasizes the importance of a properly theological mode of reflection, allowing these issues to be illuminated by the revealed truth of Sacred Scripture. Thus, for each of these difficult topics, he shows that a vital theological response must not limit itself to mere logical rigor but, rather, requires metaphysical insight and, above all, sapiential appreciation of God’s revealed word. With such instruments in hand, each essay approaches the tensions of biblical revelation with an eager readiness to show how a thoughtful Thomistic practice of biblical theology can guide faith as it seeks an understanding of both contemporary and perennial theological problems.
[more]

front cover of Envisioning Scripture
Envisioning Scripture
Joseph Smith’s Revelations in Their Early American Contexts
Colby Townsend
Signature Books, 2022
The first fifty years of United States history was a period of seemingly endless possibility. With the birth of a new country during the age of revolutions came new religions, new literary genres, new political parties, temperance and abolitionist societies, and the expansion of print and marketing networks that would dramatically change the course of the century. Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Revelations in Their Early American Contexts brings together ten essays from leading scholars on the history of early American religion and print culture. Covering issues of gender, race, prophecy, education, scripture, real and narrative time, authority and power, and apocalypticism, the essays invite the reader—scholar, student, etc.—to expand their knowledge of early Mormon history by grasping more fully the American contexts that Mormonism grew out of. 

Contributors include Catherine A. Brekus, William Davis, Elizabeth Fenton, Kathleen Flake, Paul Gutjahr, Jared Hickman, Susan Juster, Seth Perry, Laura Thiemann Scales, and Roberto A. Valdeón.
[more]

front cover of Exposition of the Apocalypse
Exposition of the Apocalypse
Tyconius Tyconius of Carthage
Catholic University of America Press, 2017
The Exposition of the Apocalypse by Tyconius of Carthage (fl. 380) was pivotal in the history of interpretation of the Book of Revelation. While expositors of the second and third centuries viewed the Apocalypse of John, or Book of Revelation, as mainly about the time of Antichrist and the end of the world, in the late fourth century Tyconius interpreted John’s visions as figurative of the struggles facing the Church throughout the entire period between the Incarnation and the Second Coming of Christ. Tyconius’s “ecclesiastical” reading of the Apocalypse was highly regarded by early medieval commentators like Caesarius of Arles, Primasius of Hadrumetum, Bede, and Beatus of Liebana, who often quoted from Tyconius’s Exposition in their own Apocalypse commentaries. Unfortunately no complete manuscript of the Exposition by Tyconius has survived. A number of recent scholars, however, believed that a large portion of his Exposition could be reconstructed from citations of it in the aforementioned early medieval writers; and this task was undertaken by Monsignor Roger Gryson. Gryson’s edition, a reconstruction of the Expositio Apocalypseos of Tyconius, was published in 2011 in Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. The present translation of that reconstructed text, with introduction and notes, exhibits Tyconius’s unique non-apocalyptic approach to the Book of Revelation. It also shows that throughout the Exposition Tyconius made use of interpretive rules that he had laid out in an earlier work on hermeneutics, the Book of Rules, strongly suggesting that Tyconius wrote his Exposition as a companion to his Book of Rules. Thus, the Exposition served as an exemplar of how those rules would apply to interpretation of even the most intriguing of biblical texts, the Apocalypse.
[more]

front cover of Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and the Aesthetic of Revelation
Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and the Aesthetic of Revelation
John D. Sykes, Jr.
University of Missouri Press, 2007

With his mastery of modernist technique and his depictions of characters obsessed with the past, Nobel laureate William Faulkner raised the bar for southern fiction writers. But the work of two later authors shows that the aesthetic of memory is not enough: Confederate thunder fades as they turn to an explicitly religious source of meaning.

            According to John Sykes, the fiction of Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy provides occasions for divine revelation. He traces their work from its common roots in midcentury southern and Catholic intellectual life to show how the two adopted different theological emphases and rhetorical strategies—O’Connor building to climactic images, Percy striving for dialogue with the reader—as a means of uncovering the sacramental foundation of the created order.

            Sykes sets O’Connor and Percy against the background of the Southern Renaissance from which they emerged, showing not only how they shared a distinctly Christian notion of art that led them to see fiction as revelatory but also how their methods of revelation took them in different directions. Yet, despite their differences in strategy and emphasis, he argues that the two are united in their conception of the artist as “God’s sharp-eyed witness,” and he connects them with the philosophers and critics, both Christian and non-Christian, who had a meaningful influence on their work.

            Through sustained readings of key texts—particularly such O’Connor stories as “The Artificial Nigger” and “The Geranium” and Percy’s novels Love in the Ruins and The Second Coming—Sykes focuses on the intertwined themes of revelation, sacrament, and community. He views their work in relation to the theological difficulties that they were not able to overcome concerning community. For both writers, the question of community is further complicated by the changing nature of the South as the Lost Cause and segregation lose their holds and a new form of prosperity arises.

            By disclosing how O’Connor and Percy made aesthetic choices based on their Catholicism and their belief that fiction by its very nature is revelatory, Sykes demonstrates that their work cannot be seen as merely a continuation of the historical aesthetic that dominated southern literature for so long. Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and the Aesthetic of Revelation is theoretically sophisticated without being esoteric and is accessible to any reader with a serious interest in these writers, brimming with fresh insights about both that clarify their approaches to art and enrich our understanding of their work.

[more]

front cover of From the Trinity
From the Trinity
The Coming of God in Revelation and Theology
Piero Coda
Catholic University of America Press, 2020
From the Trinity provides an overall view of the history and the philosophical and theological significance of God the Trinity, not only from a religious point of view but from an anthropological and socio-cultural view as well. The perspective is that of Christian doctrine, specifically Catholic, in dialogue with the cultural sensitivity of our times and with the religious pluralism that characterizes it. Following the generative-progressive method proposed by Vatican II, the book begins with a phenomenological reading of the signs of the times, with special focus upon the performative aspect of the announcement and the doctrine of faith. In particular, constant attention to the contribution made by the mystics and great charisms (from Augustine of Hippo to Francis of Assisi and Theresa of Avila up until Therese of Lisieux, Edith Stein and Chaira Lubich) toward a deeper understanding of the Trinitarian truth. From the Trinity is unique in what it offers not only for Trinitarian theology, but also for other theological disciplines (Christology, Pneumatology, Anthropology, Ecclesiology, etc.) – in which the Trinity shines forth as the central and enlightening truth – as well as for philosophy, the humanities and the natural sciences. This perspective is especially developed in terms of a Trinitarian ontology (see Part V) by which reality is understood in light of the revelation of the Trinity. The implications of the incarnation of the Son of God and the gift of the Holy Spirit are taken seriously in studying the truth of all things as they are perceived in the space created by living and thinking “in” Jesus, united to the Father in the Spirit, as suggested by the title of the book, looking upon reality “From the Trinity.”
[more]

front cover of Guiding to a Blessed End
Guiding to a Blessed End
Andrew of Caesarea and His Apocalypse Commentary in the Ancient Church
Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou
Catholic University of America Press, 2013
In this interesting and insightful work, Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, the leading expert on Andrew of Caesarea and the first to translate his Apocalypse commentary into any modern language, identifies an exact date for the commentary and a probable recipient. Her groundbreaking book, the first ever written about Andrew, analyzes his historical milieu, education, style, methodology, theology, eschatology, and pervasive and lasting influence. She explains the direct correlation between Andrew of Caesarea and fluctuating status of the Book of Revelation in Eastern Christianity through the centuries.
[more]

front cover of Logos and Revelation
Logos and Revelation
Ibn 'Arabi, Meister Eckhart, and Mystical Hermeneutics
Robert J. Dobie
Catholic University of America Press, 2010
Logos and Revelation looks closely at the writings of two of the most prominent medieval mystical writers: the Muslim, Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240) and the Christian Meister Eckhart (1260-1328).
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Making the Gods Speak
The Ritual Production of Revelation in Chinese Religious History
Vincent Goossaert
Harvard University Press, 2022
For two millennia, Chinese society has been producing divine revelations on an unparalleled scale, in multifarious genres and formats. This book is the first comprehensive attempt at accounting for the processes of such production. It builds a typology of the various ritual techniques used to make gods present and allow them to speak or write, and it follows the historical development of these types and the revealed teachings they made possible. Within the large array of visionary, mediumistic, and mystical techniques, Vincent Goossaert devotes the bulk of his analysis to spirit-writing, a family of rites that appeared around the eleventh century and gradually came to account for the largest numbers of books and tracts ascribed to the gods. In doing so, he shows that the practice of spirit-writing must be placed within the framework of techniques used by ritual specialists to control human communications with gods and spirits for healing, divining, and self-divinization, among other purposes. Making the Gods Speak thus offers a ritual-centered framework to study revelation in Chinese cultural history and comparatively with the revelatory practices of other religious traditions.
[more]

front cover of Narrative Mode and Theological Claim in Johannine Literature
Narrative Mode and Theological Claim in Johannine Literature
Essays in Honor of Gail R. O’Day
Lynn R. Huber
SBL Press, 2021

Exegesis that bears fruit both for the academy and the church

In this collection of essays and sermons on the Gospel of John and Revelation, friends, colleagues, and former students of Gail R. O’Day explore and extend the possibilities raised by her work in her groundbreaking study Revelation in the Fourth Gospel. The essays engage with both historical contextualization and literary analysis to identify the rhetorical features that ancient readers might have apprehended, while the sermons explore how the literary shape of the text can inform preaching through attention to the narrative modes of the text. Contributions from Yoshimi Azuma, Teresa Fry Brown, Patrick Gray, Lynn R. Huber, Susan E. Hylen, Karoline M. Lewis, Thomas G. Long, Veronice Miles, Vernon K. Robbins, Gilberto A. Ruiz, Ted A. Smith, and William M. Wright IV thematize the importance of narrative approaches and the diverse ways they can be employed.

[more]

front cover of Neither Nature nor Grace
Neither Nature nor Grace
Aquinas, Barth, and Garrigou-Lagrance on the Epistemic Use of God's Effects
T. Adam Van Wart
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
Neither Nature nor Grace operates at the intersection of systematic and philosophical theology, exploring in particular how St. Thomas Aquinas variously uses the latter in service to the clarification and faithful advancement of the former. More specifically, Neither Nature nor Grace explores the overlooked logical difficulties that have followed the late modern debates in ecumenical Christian theology as to whether knowledge of God is available solely through God’s gracious self-revelation (e.g., Jesus Christ and Holy Scripture), or through revelation and the deliverances of natural reason. Van Wart takes the prominent French Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as paradigmatic for the case that knowledge of God can be had by both revelation and natural reason. Representing the opposing position, that God can only be known through divine revelation, Van Wart highlights the work of influential Protestant theologian Karl Barth. By placing these two imposing 20th century theologians in conversation, and by providing a careful theo-philosophical analysis of the logical mechanics of each thinker’s respective arguments, Van Wart shows how both inadvertently overreach their self-professed epistemological bounds and just so run into significant problems maintaining the coherence of their relative theological positions. That is, against their expressed intentions to the contrary, both thinkers unwittingly evacuate the divine essence of the mystery Christian tradition has always previously claimed it to have, effectively reducing the being of God to mere creaturely being writ large. As a contrasting corrective to this problem, Van Wart proffers a constructive grammatical reading of Aquinas’s measured account of the crucial but often overlooked logical differences between what can be said of the divine, on the one hand, versus what can be known of God, on the other. While many recent works have attempted to solve the ongoing arguments which Garrigou-Lagrange and Barth epitomize regarding the epistemic use of God’s effects, Van Wart’s contribution constructively pushes the conversation to a different level in showing how Aquinas’s grammar of God provides a salutary means of dissolving and moving beyond these contentious debates altogether.
[more]

front cover of Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1
Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 1
Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa
Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff
University of Chicago Press, 1991
"Defining their enterprise as more in the direction of poetics than of prosaics, the Comaroffs free themselves to analyze a vivid series of images and events as objects of analysis. These they mine for clues to the 19th-century contents of the British imagination and of Tswana minds. They are themselves imagining the imagination of others, and they do the job with characteristic aplomb....The first volume creates an appetite for the second."—Sally Falk Moore, American Anthropologist
[more]

front cover of Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 2
Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume 2
The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier
John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff
University of Chicago Press, 1997
In the second of a proposed three-volume study, John and Jean Comaroff continue their exploration of colonial evangelism and modernity in South Africa. Moving beyond the opening moments of the encounter between the British Nonconformist missions and the Southern Tswana peoples, Of Revelation and Revolution, Volume II, explores the complex transactions—both epic and ordinary—among the various dramatis personae along this colonial frontier.

The Comaroffs trace many of the major themes of twentieth-century South African history back to these formative encounters. The relationship between the British evangelists and the Southern Tswana engendered complex exchanges of goods, signs, and cultural markers that shaped not only African existence but also bourgeois modernity "back home" in England. We see, in this volume, how the colonial attempt to "civilize" Africa set in motion a dialectical process that refashioned the everyday lives of all those drawn into its purview, creating hybrid cultural forms and potent global forces which persist in the postcolonial age.

This fascinating study shows how the initiatives of the colonial missions collided with local traditions, giving rise to new cultural practices, new patterns of production and consumption, new senses of style and beauty, and new forms of class distinction and ethnicity. As noted by reviewers of the first volume, the Comaroffs have succeeded in providing a model for the study of colonial encounters. By insisting on its dialectical nature, they demonstrate that colonialism can no longer be seen as a one-sided relationship between the conquering and the conquered. It is, rather, a complex system of reciprocal determinations, one whose legacy is very much with us today.
[more]

front cover of Political Philosophy and Revelation
Political Philosophy and Revelation
James V. Schall, SJ
Catholic University of America Press, 2013
A collection of Fr. James Schall's recent essays, Political Philosophy and Revelation offers a learned, erudite, and coherent statement on the relationship between reason and revelation in the modern world. It addresses political philosophy in the context of an awareness of other humane and practical sciences, including history, literature, economics, theology, ethics and metaphysics.
[more]

front cover of The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance
The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance
Ester Gilman Richey
University of Missouri Press, 1998

Recognizing that the seventeenth century's volatile debate over apocalyptic interpretation has since become a one-sided discussion, Esther Gilman Richey develops a context that recovers the dynamism so inherent in the writings of the period and provides illuminating details that enhance the prophetic continuum. The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance does not ignore the familiar prophetic verse of Spenser and Milton, but it significantly expands the scope of study by examining the interpretations of both men and women who represent a range of ecclesiastical and political perspectives.

Richey rejects Barbara Lewalski's claim that the radical, prophetic writers and metaphysical poets of the seventeenth century drew inspiration from distinct biblical models, the former from the Apocalypse and the latter from the Psalms. Instead she contends that even writers such as Donne and Herbert, whom we have long considered "literary," were in reality using their poetry to participate in the hottest debates of the time.

While the radical writers, such as Spenser and Milton, were immediately responsive to ecclesiastical and political controversies, the conservative, metaphysical poets—Donne, Herbert, and Vaughan—were posing equally politically charged questions: Is the pope Antichrist? Is the Bride of Christ pure? Is the Temple a model of ecclesiastical reform? The writers of the period did not move in divided and distinguished worlds, but in fact constantly responded to one another through poetic and politically charged dialogue.

By drawing from the writings of various individuals, both radical and conformist, male and female, Richey traces the shifting representations of the apocalyptic Bride and Temple over time. Organized chronologically, the chapters of The Politics of Revelation in the English Renaissance reveal the escalating debate among the pacifists, conformists, militants, and feminists. Not only does Richey uncover the prophetic dimension of conformist writers usually described as apolitical and devotional, but she also explores the writings of lesser-known women prophets: Aemilia Lanyer, Mary Cary, Anna Trapnel, and Margaret Fell. In such biblical passages as the apocalyptic "woman clothed with the sun," these early feminists find the authority for their own prophetic speech.

This provocative analysis—at once far-reaching and tightly focused—reveals the complexity of the apocalyptic discourse that transpired among Renaissance writers and poets.

[more]

front cover of Prophecy in Islam
Prophecy in Islam
Philosophy and Orthodoxy
Fazlur Rahman
University of Chicago Press, 2011

This longstanding and highly regarded volume is the first to explore the doctrine of prophetic revelation, a critical and definitive area of Islamic religious and political thought. In it, the esteemed Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman traces the inception of this doctrine from ancient Greek texts, its interpretation and elaboration by Muslim philosophers in order to suit their vision of the Prophet, and, finally, the varying degrees of acceptance of these convergent ideas by the Muslim orthodoxy.

The latest edition of this classic text includes a new foreword by Islamic studies expert Michael Sells, confirming Prophecy in Islam as the best source on its subject after more than half a century. This longstanding and highly regarded volume is the first to explore the doctrine of prophetic revelation, a critical and definitive area of Islamic religious and political thought. In it, the esteemed Islamic scholar Fazlur Rahman traces the inception of this doctrine from ancient Greek texts, its interpretation and elaboration by Muslim philosophers in order to suit their vision of the Prophet, and, finally, the varying degrees of acceptance of these convergent ideas by the Muslim orthodoxy.

The latest edition of this classic text includes a new foreword by Islamic studies expert Michael Sells, confirming Prophecy in Islam as the best source on its subject after more than half a century.

[more]

front cover of Reading the Book of Revelation
Reading the Book of Revelation
A Resource for Students
David L. Barr
SBL Press, 2003
The Apocalypse lends itself to multivalent readings, and this volume fills a gap for students and scholars by discussing how different methods apply to readings. Using historical, literary, and social analysis in combination with strategies such as social-conflict theory, philosophy, women’s studies, ethics, history of religions, postcolonial studies, and popular culture, the essays in this volume focus on specific texts and show not only how each helps interpret the text but also how diverse methods produce divergent readings of a text. Developed as a classroom resource for undergraduates, this work will also prove useful to graduate students, religious leaders, and others who wish to explore how methods shape our understandings of various texts, including Revelation.
[more]

front cover of Reason, Revelation, and Metaphysics
Reason, Revelation, and Metaphysics
Montague Brown
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
Any realist metaphysics must include an integrated account of the transcendentals and the analogy of being, for an adequate metaphysics must be about everything, and all things share in some key metaphysical characteristic—being, unity, truth, goodness, and beauty. However, they do not share in them in exactly the same way. Therefore, there is need to explain the transcendental characteristics in an analogical way. By using the phrase “transcendental analogies,” Reason, Revelation and Metaphysics claims that there are analogies of unity, truth, goodness, and beauty, which are related to, but irreducible to, the analogy of being. As this book is a systematic study of the topic, theoretical reason has primacy in the project and metaphysics is given pride of place. But reason is practical and aesthetic as well; that is, our consciences urge us to seek what is good, and we are delighted by what is beautiful. Although goodness and beauty are not reducible to truth, they must be included in any adequate metaphysical account, for metaphysics looks to explain everything. Although metaphysics is traditionally thought to be a philosophical project involving ontology and natural theology, Montague Brown argues that an adequate metaphysics must ultimately be theological, including within its scope the truths of revelation. Philosophical reason’s examination of the transcendental analogies raises questions that it cannot answer. We experience a world of many beings, truths, goods, and beauties. Recognizing that these many instances have something in common, we affirm a transcendent instance of each (traditionally called God). However, although we know that a transcendent instance exists, we do not know its nature: therefore, we cannot say how it is related to the other instances. If we try to apply this transcendent instance as the prime analogate to shed light on the other analogates, we must fail, for the abstractness and universality of the transcendent instance can add nothing to our understanding of the particular instances. Wanting to know how the many exist and are related, philosophical reason finds no way forward and recognizes its need for help. It is the thesis of this book that reason finds this help only in the revelation of the God’s covenantal relation with the world. The first principle of all things—most perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man—is really and freely related to us. Only by accepting this revealed prime analogate can the transcendental analogies bear fruit in our ongoing quest for understanding.
[more]

front cover of Revelation and Convergence
Revelation and Convergence
Mark Bosco
Catholic University of America Press, 2017
Revelation & Convergence brings together professors of literature, theology, and history to help both critics and readers better understand Flannery O’Connor’s religious imagination.
[more]

front cover of The Revelation of Imagination
The Revelation of Imagination
From Homer and the Bible through Virgil and Augustine to Dante
William Franke
Northwestern University Press, 2015

In The Revelation of Imagination, William Franke attempts to focus on what is enduring and perennial rather than on what is accommodated to the agenda of the moment. Franke’s book offers re-actualized readings of representative texts from the Bible, Homer, and Virgil to Augustine and Dante. The selections are linked together in such a way as to propose a general interpretation of knowledge. They emphasize, moreover, a way of articulating the connection of humanities knowledge with what may, in various senses, be called divine revelation. This includes the sort of inspiration to which poets since Homer have typically laid claim, as well as that proper to the biblical tradition of revealed religion. The Revelation of Imagination invigorates the ongoing discussion about the value of humanities as a source of enduring knowledge.

[more]

front cover of Revelation of Modernism
Revelation of Modernism
Response to Cultural Crises in Fin-de-Siécle Painting
Albert Boime
University of Missouri Press, 2008

Among postimpressionist painters, Van Gogh, Seurat, Cézanne, and Gauguin produced a remarkable body of work that responded to a cultural and spiritual crisis in the avant-garde world—influences that pushed them toward an increasing reliance on science, literature, and occultism. In Revelation of Modernism, renowned art historian Albert Boime reappraises specific works by these masters from a perspective more appreciative of the individuals’ inner conflicts, offering the art world a new understanding of a period fraught with apocalyptic fears and existential anxieties.

Building on the seminal observations of Sven Lövgren from a half-century ago, Boime rejects popular notions of “art for art’s sake” and rethinks an entire movement to suggest that history, rather than expressive urge, is the driving force that shapes art. He reconsiders familiar masterpieces from a fresh perspective, situating the art in the contexts of history both real and speculative, of contemporary philosophy, and of science to depict modernism as a development that ultimately failed.

Boime expands on what we think we know about these figures and produces startling new revelations about their work. From the political history of Seurat’s Parade de cirque to the astronomical foundations of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, he draws analogies between literary sources and social, personal, and political strategies that have eluded most art historians. He offers a richer and more complex vision of Cézanne, considering the artist as an Old Testament figure in search of the Promised Landscape. And he provides a particularly detailed look at Gauguin—on whom Boime has never previously published—that takes a closer look at the artist’s The Vision after the Sermon and its allusions to Eliphas Lévi’s writings, sheds light on the sources for From whence do we come? and offers new thoughts about Gauguin’s various self-portraits.

Boime’s latest contribution further testifies to his status as one of our most important living art historians. As entertaining as it is eloquent, Revelation of Modernism is a bold and groundbreaking work that should be required reading for all who wish to understand the contradictory origins and development of modernism and its role in history.

[more]

front cover of The Revelation of Your Words
The Revelation of Your Words
The New Evangelization and the Role of the Seminary Professor of Sacred Scripture
Kevin Zilverberg
Saint Paul Seminary Press, 2021
The Revelation of Your Words, a collection of essays, treats the role of the seminary professor of sacred Scripture within the context of the New Evangelization. Some of the essays concern principally the imparting of knowledge and best practices to accomplish this; others concern the fostering of delight in the sacred page and spiritual encounter with God. Although these essays are Catholic, written within a Catholic theological framework and with Catholic seminaries in mind, many of their conclusions can be applied to non-Catholic environments. This book provides insights that, even beyond the seminary, will benefit teachers of the Bible, regardless of their denomination and level of instruction. Readers will encounter the following authors and topics. Peter S. Williamson writes on the implications of the New Evangelization for priestly ministry and for teaching Scripture. Steven C. Smith makes a contribution concerning the role of the seminary professor of sacred Scripture in forming priests. Michael Magee treats the relevance of Johannine irony to the New Evangelization. Stephen Ryan’s chapter takes up the topic of Old Testament Wisdom literature and formation for a New Evangelization. Juana L. Manzo seeks a path to integrate modern and ancient interpretations into the seminary classroom. Kelly Anderson takes up the father of Proverbs 1–9 as a model of spiritual fatherhood for seminary professors. Scott Carl proposes a spiritual reading of sacred Scripture in the twenty-first century. Michael Magee, in his second contribution, writes on the joy of discovery in the Fourth Gospel. James Keating reflects upon the exegete as seminary formator. Finally, André Villeneuve advocates for the teaching of Biblical Hebrew in Catholic seminaries and academic institutions.
[more]

front cover of Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy
Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy
The Introduction and Implementation of the Principle, 1830–1853
Merina Smith
Utah State University Press, 2013
 In Revelation, Resistance, and Mormon Polygamy historian Merina Smith explores the introduction of polygamy in Nauvoo, a development that unfolded amid scandal and resistance. Smith considers the ideological, historical, and even psychological elements of the process and captures the emotional and cultural detail of this exciting and volatile period in Mormon history. She illuminates the mystery of early adherents' acceptance of such a radical form of marriage in light of their dedication to the accepted monogamous marriage patterns of their day.

When Joseph Smith began to reveal and teach the doctrine of plural marriage in 1841, even stalwart members like Brigham Young were shocked and confused. In this thoughtful study, Smith argues that the secret introduction of plural marriage among the leadership coincided with an evolving public theology that provided a contextualizing religious narrative that persuaded believers to accept the principle.

This fresh interpretation draws from diaries, letters, newspapers, and other primary sources and is especially effective in its use of family narratives. It will be of great interest not only to scholars and the general public interested in Mormon history but in American history, religion, gender and sexuality, and the history of marriage and families.
[more]

front cover of Scripturalizing Revelation
Scripturalizing Revelation
An African American Postcolonial Reading of Empire
Lynne St. Clair Darden
SBL Press, 2015

A fresh contribution to the growing body of New Testament scholarship on empire, both ancient and modern

Darden’s reading of Revelation examines John the Seer’s rhetorical strategy, in general, and imperial cult imagery in chapters 4 and 5, in particular, through the lens of an African American scripturalization supplemented by postcolonial theory. The scripturalization proposes that John the Seer’s signifyin(g) on empire demonstrated that he was well aware of the oppressive nature of Roman imperialism on the lives of provincial Asian Christians. Yet, ironically, John reinscribed imperial processes and practices. Darden argues that African American biblical scholarship must now attend adequately to these complex cultural negotiations lest it find itself inadvertently feeding the imperial beast.

Features:

  • Relates the potential for African American cooption by the U.S. Empire to the cooption by the Roman Empire both thematized and performed in Revelation
  • Book-length study on postcolonial African American biblical hermeneutics
  • A reading supplemented by postcolonial theory that better addresses the hybridity of African American identity
[more]

front cover of Still, the Small Voice
Still, the Small Voice
Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition
Tom Mould
Utah State University Press, 2011

Memorates—personal experience narratives of encounters with the supernatural—that recount individuals’ personal revelations, primarily through the Holy Ghost, are a pervasive aspect of the communal religious experience of Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In accordance with current emphases in folklore studies on narrative and belief, Tom Mould uses ethnographic research and an emic approach that honors the belief systems under study to analyze how people within Mormon communities frame and interpret their experiences with the divine through the narratives they share.  In doing so, he provides a significant new ethnographic interpretation of Mormon culture and belief and also applies his findings directly to broader scholarly folklore discourse on performance, genre, personal experience narrative, belief, and oral versus written traditions.

[more]

front cover of Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse
Studies in the History of the Greek Text of the Apocalypse
The Ancient Stems
Josef Schmid
SBL Press, 2018

Now available in English

Josef Schmid's landmark publication, Studien zur Geschichte des Griechischen Apokalypse-Textes, has been the standard work for understanding Revelation's Greek manuscript tradition and textual history for more than sixty years. Despite the fact that most major studies on the book are based on Schmid's work, the work itself has long been out of print, making it difficult for the broader scholarly community to reassess Schmid's conclusions in light of recent manuscript discoveries and technological advances. This new translation of the work makes Schmid's detailed review of the history of textual scholarship; his comprehensive examination of the origin, history, and development of the Greek manuscripts of the book of Revelation; and his assessment of John's peculiar linguistic writing style accessible to a new generation of scholars.

Features

  • A critical introduction that places Schmid's work in its historical and theoretical context
  • Definitions and explanations of Schmid's text-critical terms and categories used in his construction of Revelation's Greek manuscript tradition
  • The latest available information used to correct, update, and supplement Schmid's Greek manuscript data and historical and text-critical conclusions
[more]

front cover of Thinking Through Revelation
Thinking Through Revelation
Robert J. Dobie
Catholic University of America Press, 2019
Navigating the seemingly competing claims of human reason and divine revelation to truth is without a doubt one of the central problems of medieval philosophy. Medieval thinkers argued a whole gamut of positions on the proper relation of religious faith to human reason. Thinking Through Revelation attempts to ask deeper questions: what possibilities for philosophical thought did divine revelation open up for medieval thinkers? How did the contents of the sacred scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam put into question established philosophical assumptions? But most fundamentally, how did not merely the content of the sacred books but the very mode in which revelation itself is understood to come to us – as a book “sent down” from on high, as a covenant between God and his people, or as incarnate person - create or foreclose possibilities for the resolution of the philosophical problems that the Abrahamic revelations themselves raised?
[more]

front cover of Tiffany's Swedenborgian Angels
Tiffany's Swedenborgian Angels
Stained Glass Windows Representing the Seven Churches from the Book of Revelation
Mary Lou Bertucci
Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2011

In 2001, a Swedenborgian minister found a set of seven magnificent stained-glass windows stored in old crates in a barn in rural Pennsylvania. Their story illuminates a fascinating facet of American art history as well as an important set of spiritual teachings.

In 1902, a Swedenborgian church in Glendale, Ohio, commissioned the seven windows as a gift for their sister church in Cincinnati. Each window depicts an angel that represents one of the seven churches described in the book of Revelation. The windows were designed and created in the studios of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and they reflect not only the rich symbolism found in the Bible, but Tiffany’s hallmark color and brilliance. Tiffany’s love of revealing angels in stained glass shines through in every panel.

After their original home was torn down in 1964, the windows were put into storage, only to be rediscovered and painstakingly restored years later. Now a traveling exhibition, the seven angels have been given a new life as shining examples of Tiffany’s art and as a focus for spiritual reflection and meditation.

Tiffany’s Swedenborgian Angels guides the reader not only through the history of the windows, but the spiritual meaning of each one, weaving Swedenborg’s teachings with the luminous imagery of the angels themselves. If you have seen the exhibition, the book allows you to revisit the windows again any time; if you have not, it is a powerful introduction to a vivid piece of spiritual history.

[more]

front cover of Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation
Untold Tales from the Book of Revelation
Sex and Gender, Empire, and Ecology
Stephen D. Moore
SBL Press, 2014

An interlinked collection of essays representing the best of Stephen D. Moore’s groundbreaking scholarship

This collection of previously published essays is a companion to The Bible in Theory: Critical and Postcritical Essays (2010). Chapters engage postcolonial studies, cultural studies, deconstruction, autobiographical criticism, masculinity studies, queer theory, affect theory, and animality studies—methods Moore believes present unprecedented challenges to the monochrome model of Revelation scholarship based on traditional historical-critical methods.

Features:

  • Nine essays on biblical literary criticism including two co-written with Jennifer A. Glancy and Catherine Keller
  • Contextual introductions for each essay
  • Annotated bibliographies
[more]

logo for Saint Paul Seminary Press
Worthy Lamb
An Exegetical-Spiritual Commentary on John's Apocalypse
Andreas Hoeck
Saint Paul Seminary Press, 2024
This book is a systematic commentary on the Apocalypse of Saint John, examining each chapter and verse based on the original Greek and Latin texts. The underlying hermeneutic is an idealist or allegorical point of view that does not attempt to identify apocalyptic imagery with concrete historical events. Rather, symbols and metaphors are interpreted, with attention to their intertextuality, as paradigmatic of the epic battle between the forces of light and darkness, good and evil, the dragon and the Lamb, playing out not only in the vicissitudes of the world today, but also and especially in one’s personal life. Rather than focusing on sterile symbolisms, the book attempts to inspire a more radical discipleship of Jesus by applying the eschatological imagery to the realm of spiritual discernment. John’s Apocalypse is certainly considered the grand New Testament Theology of History, but here its ethical dualism is mainly taken as a challenge for the interior life, to enter into the worship before the throne of Christ the Lamb, and to realize that where evil makes war against the principles of good, God will remain in control at all times. The author has drawn on two commentators whose work has not been translated and made widely accessible until now, Rupert of Deutz and Adrienne von Speyr. The book aims to relay Revelation’s message of Christ-centered faithfulness and perseverance, of virtue and holiness, once addressed to the seven churches in Asia, to a contemporary readership.
[more]

front cover of Writings on the Apocalypse
Writings on the Apocalypse
Francis X. Gumerlock
Catholic University of America Press, 2022
The Apocalypse or Book of Revelation is one of the most frequently discussed books of the biblical canon and arguably one of the most difficult to interpret. This volume contains three texts as examples of late ancient Christian interpretation of its intriguing visions. It also includes a comprehensive introduction to each text by its respective translator. Brief Explanations of the Apocalypse by Cassiodorus (c. 580), translated by Francis X. Gumerlock from Latin and published in English for the first time in this volume, served as an introduction to the Book of Revelation for Cassiodorus’s students at the Vivarium, a monastery in southern Italy. Cassiodorus divided the Apocalypse into 33 sections, corresponding to the age of Jesus at his Passion, and expressed his belief that John’s visions were revelations of the end of the world, including the Second Coming of Christ for judgment, the defeat of the Antichrist, the general resurrection, and the arrival of the heavenly Kingdom. Testimonies of Gregory the Great on the Apocalypse, translated from Latin by Mark DelCogliano and also published here for the first time in English, is a collection of 55 excerpts on the Apocalypse from the writings of St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) compiled by an anonymous author. Drawn mainly from Gregory’s Moralia, but also from his Book on Pastoral Care and homilies, the excerpts, which are arranged from Revelation 1.4 to 22.17, illustrate Gregory’s grammatical exegesis of the Apocalypse, his interpretation of various figures in the Apocalypse, and his attempt to reconcile certain passages in the Apocalypse with seemingly contradictory texts from other parts of Scripture. The anonymous Greek Scholia on the Apocalypse contains 39 exegetical notes on chapters 1-14 of the Apocalypse, which reveal influences of Origen and Didymus the Blind, among others. The notes provide “spiritual” interpretations of the various passages and give attention to the interpretation of certain words that appear in the Book of Revelation. This new translation from the Greek by T. C. Schmidt utilizes all the Greek editions. Furthermore, its introductory matter contains updates on the Scholia from the latest scholarship and compares each scholion with interpretations found in various patristic authors, mainly of Alexandrian heritage.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter