Freedom under the Word

Description

In Freedom under the Word, top-tier scholars offer critical engagements with Karl Barth's exegesis of Christian Scripture and explore its implications for contemporary hermeneutics and biblical interpretation. Focusing on rare texts from the Barth corpus, the book considers the legacy and potential of Barth's theology by presenting a wide-ranging engagement with and assessment of Barth's theological exegesis. It covers Barth's career chronologically, providing insight into his theological development as it relates to Scripture. Contributors include John Webster, Francis Watson, Wesley Hill, Stephen Fowl, Paul Nimmo, and Grant Macaskill.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 04 juin 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493416851
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2019 by Ben Rhodes and Martin Westerholm
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1685-1
Scripture quotations labeled RSV are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Dedication
Dedicated to the memory of John Webster (1955–2016)
Contents
Cover i
Half Title Page ii
Title Page iii
Copyright Page iv
Dedication v
Abbrevia tions ix
Introduction Ben Rhodes and Martin Westerholm 1
Part 1: Barth’s Theology of Scripture 7
1. Barth’s Theology of Scripture in Developmental Perspective Martin Westerholm 9
2. Barth’s Theology of Scripture in Dogmatic Perspective Ben Rhodes 35
Part 2: Barth’s Early Exegesis 51
3. Rewriting Romans: Theology and Exegesis in Barth’s Early Commentaries Francis Watson 53
4. “A Relation beyond All Relations”: God and Creatures in Barth’s Lectures on Ephesians, 1921–22 John Webster 71
5. The Call to Repentance Is the Call of the Gospel: Barth, the Epistle of James, and Moral Theology Carsten Card-Hyatt 91
Part 3: Barth’s Doctrine of God in Exegetical Perspective 111
6. The Logos Is Jesus Christ: Karl Barth on the Johannine Prologue Wesley Hill 113
7. Karl Barth on Ephesians 1:4 Stephen Fowl 127
8. Karl Barth and Isaiah’s Figural Hope Mark Gignilliat 137
9. Israel and the Church: Barth’s Exegesis of Romans 9–11 Susannah Ticciati 151
Part 4: Barth’s Doctrine of Creation in Exegetical Perspective 173
10. Creation and Covenant: Karl Barth’s Exegesis of Genesis 2:8–17 Andrew B. Torrance 175
11. Barth on God’s Graciousness toward Humanity in Genesis 1–2 Christina N. Larsen 197
12. “Worthy Is the Lamb”: Karl Barth’s Exegesis of Revelation 4–5 Christopher Green 215
Part 5: Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation in Exegetical Perspective 233
13. Barth on Christ and Adam Grant Macaskill 235
14. “We, Too, Are in Advent”: Barth’s Theological Exegesis of Hebrews 11 R. David Nelson 253
15. The Compassion of Jesus for the Crowds Paul T. Nimmo 271
Contributors 289
Subject Index 293
Scripture Index 299
Author Index 303
Back Cover 307
Abbreviations CD Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics , 4 volumes in 13 parts, ed. and trans. G. W. Bromiley, T. F. Torrance et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–69). GA Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1971–). I Predigten II Akademische Werke III Vorträge und kleinere Arbeiten IV Gespräche V Briefe KD Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik , 4 volumes in 13 parts (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Bücherei, 1932–67). Romans II Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans , trans. Edwyn Hoskyns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933). Römer I Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief, Erste Fassung (1919) , ed. Hermann Schmidt, GA II 16 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1985). Römer II Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief, Zweite Fassung (1922) , ed. C. van der Kooi and Katja Tolstaja, GA II 47 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2010).
Introduction
Ben Rhodes and Martin Westerholm
Do we really need another book on the theology of Karl Barth? After so much commentary, is there anything left that is worth saying? It is of course not surprising that the decisive figure of twentieth-century theology continues to generate debate and discussion, but one question that we might ask ourselves in considering the future of these discussions is how far they are faithful to the criterion by which Barth himself wished to be judged. Barth claimed that his theology consisted in listening to Scripture and telling his readers what he heard; he made clear that fidelity to Scripture is the appropriate criterion for evaluating its success. Yet reception of his thought has been marked by a peculiar hesitance to engage directly with his exegesis. The first wave of responses to Barth’s work, concentrated on his commentaries on Romans, included extensive engagement from biblical scholars, but these figures tended to devote the bulk of their attention to Barth’s method. Subsequent theological scholarship has struggled to make a turn to sustained consideration of exegesis. Study of Barth’s work in recent decades was dominated for a time by heavily conceptualized debates that turned not on attention to the particularities and surprises of Barth’s exegesis but on the capacity of particular master concepts to facilitate a systematizing of the whole of Barth’s thought. Among the casualties of these debates was patient attention to the way that the twists and turns of Barth’s theology are themselves reflections of his attempt to listen to the complex voice of Scripture. A series of recent conferences on Barth’s exegesis, including two from which the majority of the essays in this volume originate, suggest that the focal point of attention to Barth’s work may be shifting, but as we near the hundred-year anniversary of Barth’s landmark work on Romans, scholars working in this sphere are having to play a measure of catch-up.
This book aims to engage with Barth on the terms of his preferred criterion by presenting studies of his exegetical work. There are at least a couple of reasons why this task is important. In a more narrow sense, the task is crucial to consideration of the legacy and future potential of Barth’s theology. The fruitfulness of Barth’s work today is best measured by the contributions that it makes to contemporary interpretation and presentation of Scripture. But beyond narrower questions regarding Barth’s legacy, attention to his exegesis is important as an element in the ongoing task of learning what it means to read Scripture well. The question of the kind of interpretation that aids the church’s proclamation is the question of theological interpretation of Scripture. Just how this interpretation is to function is among the crucial questions facing theologians and biblical scholars today. Interest in theological interpretation has grown exponentially in recent years, but it has not produced agreement either among theologians or between theologians and biblical scholars on the nature and function of this practice. Debates that expose the continued fragmentation of contemporary theology by driving confessional and disciplinary divisions to the surface continue. One resource available to contemporary thinkers as they attempt to make progress in these debates is the example of past masters. Study of the exegetical habits of leading figures in the Christian tradition is thus something of a growth industry at present. Alongside renewed interest in, say, the exegesis of Thomas Aquinas, consideration of Barth’s exegesis is a tool that may be deployed for the sake of advancing our understanding of theological interpretation more generally.
In the interest of contributing not only to evaluation of Barth’s work, but also to the wider task of bringing theologians and biblical scholars together in consideration of what it means to read Scripture well, this volume presents essays from a range of specialists in both Barth’s work and biblical studies. The bulk of the essays in this book are drawn from two sources: a study group focusing on Barth’s exegesis that ran from 2013 to 2015 within the Evangelical Theological Society and a conference that took place in 2015 under the auspices of the Institute for Bible, Theology, and Hermeneutics at the University of St. Andrews. Though the contributors to this volume did not encounter one another’s essays beyond the exposure that these conferences facilitated, and their conclusions vary widely in detail, a measure of consensus emerged around a series of interrelated notions. First, Barth’s exegesis, often carried out at great length in the fine-print sections of the Church Dogmatics , as well as the many lectures on Scripture given throughout his academic tenure (to say nothing of his early years as a pastor in Safenwil), is crucial for understanding his theological work, and consideration of the latter cannot responsibly proceed without attention to the former. Second, though responsible consideration of Barth’s theological claims depends on attention to his exegetical work, fair evaluation of Barth’s work as a united whole requires acknowledgment of a cyclical movement through which exegetical work grounds theological conclusions and theological conclusions in turn inform exegetical work, with the result that disciplined grappling with Barth’s work requires dynamic attention to a spiraling give-and-take between exegetical and theological reflection. Third, though the theological reading of Scripture that results from the spiraling relation of exegesis and dogmatics in Barth’s work is robust and remains a salutary challenge for critically inclined modes of exegesis, some difficulties do appear to arise on particular exegetical questions like the role of Israel and the Old Testament background to New Testament material, and on broader procedural questions about the influence of doctrinal decisions on exegetical work. These areas of consensus are of course quite broad, but they may perhaps serve as points of departure for further dialogue between biblical scholars and t