Keith Ward introduces this volume on the world’s greatest ever bestseller by suggesting that the Bible is neither a book dictated by God, as some believe, nor just a set of out-dated taboos and politically slanted histories, as those at the opposite extreme maintain.
Rather, it is a very mixed set of documents, by many different writers, from many different times, which records the struggle of many people in one particular religious tradition to respond to their discernments of a transcendent spiritual power.
What makes the Bible distinctive among other religious books is that the dominant image of transcendence, of spirituality, that slowly develops in its pages is the image of a power that helps humans to seek a moral goal in history even when such a thing would seem impossible to achieve – were it not for the power of grace.
The Bible is, in short, a spiritual text.
Daftar Isi
Introduction: the Bible and modern scholarship 1
Part 1
THE NATURE OF BIBLICAL INSPIRATION
The Bible as a spiritual text 7
Is the Bible inerrant? 14
Can we believe in biblical miracles? 17
Diversity in the Bible 23
What does inspiration mean? 28
Part 2
THE OLD TESTAMENT
Reading the Old Testament 37
The prophets 42
Religious beliefs in the ancient world 47
Prophetic monotheism 49
Are there immoral rules in the Old Testament? 54
Part 3
BIBLICAL METAPHORS AND
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES
Metaphor in the Bible 63
Metaphors of creation 67
Metaphors of incarnation 75
Metaphors of atonement 84
Metaphors of salvation 91
Contents
Part 4
THE NEW TESTAMENT
The positive gospel of unlimited divine love 99
Metaphors of the kingdom of God 104
The kingdom: a case study 113
Part 5
THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS IN THE BIBLE
The development of biblical ideas of God and morality 123
New Testament developments of biblical ideas 128
The development of biblical ideas of the afterlife 132
A case study in development: retributive and
restorative justice 139
Development beyond the Bible: the cosmic story to
which the Bible points 142
Conclusion: the Bible as the word of God 149
Index 151
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