In the first post in this series on how the Bible has been interpreted throughout history, we saw that the writers of the New Testament used the language and stories of their Scriptures in order to make sense of what they had experienced in their encounter with Jesus. This meant that, in turn, they read … Continue reading The Rule of Faith: The Bible in the Second Century
One of the major themes of the readings appointed for the Easter season is vindication. As we saw last week, this is a prominent theme in the sermons towards the beginning of Acts: Humanity put Jesus to death as both a criminal and a cursed victim of sacred violence, but God vindicated him by raising … Continue reading Vindication: A Reflection on John 21.1-19 and Acts 9.1-6
Over the past two thousand years, Christians have interpreted their Scriptures in many different ways. These different interpretive methods and traditions didn’t arise out of nowhere, however. For the most part, Christians have used the methodologies of the cultures in which they’ve lived. But, they have also done this within an interpretive trajectory that began … Continue reading ‘As it is written’: How the New Testament reads the Bible
One thing all Christians agree on is the central position of the Bible in the teaching, life, and faith of the Church. This may be a bold statement: Certainly it’s been a historical claim among Protestants that Roman Catholics don’t value the Bible, and today many self-identified evangelicals claim that progressive Christians don’t ‘believe in’ … Continue reading The Bible and the Problem of Interpretation
There’s been a battle of sorts waging within Christian theology over the past few decades about the cross. The basic question behind this controversy is: Who put Jesus on the cross? The dominant strains of theology in the West over the past thousand years or so have said, essentially, that it was God the Father … Continue reading Whose Cross is it? A Reflection on Acts 5:27-32
Matthew Root 