John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
The self has become a problem in postmodern thought, and this problem poses a sharp challenge for dialogue between Christians and others who tell different stories of self and community. A healthy ...
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The self has become a problem in postmodern thought, and this problem poses a sharp challenge for dialogue between Christians and others who tell different stories of self and community. A healthy suspicion of the self’s transcendence lets the self approach the other in humility, but what can create the community where the self and other can embrace? Paul was humbled before Christ, yet to embrace the crucified Christ in one community he had to retell his community’s story. Can the Church today repeat Paul’s costly embrace? Paul in Israel’s Story addresses the problem of the self in community in a theological hermeneutics that brings together recent biblical scholarship and constructive theology. Proponents and critics of the new perspective on Paul join philosophers in an ongoing conversation about selfhood. Paul’s story extends Paul Ricoeur’s “hermeneutics of the self” into stories of communities; hermeneutics deepens our sense of Paul’s “I have been crucified with Christ” and “Christ lives in me”. Linking hermeneutics with Paul’s story is a critical engagement with Rudolf Bultmann. Avoiding the stark either/or that can characterize critiques of Bultmann, the book reconceives demythologizing as an ongoing conversation about how to embrace the other from out of the past in one community. It concludes by situating the communal self in a contextual framework built on Jürgen Moltmann’s “community in Christ” and Robert Jenson’s pneumatology. This framework carries communal selfhood into interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, ecclesiology, and pneumatology. Just as retelling Israel’s story challenged Paul’s self-understanding, Paul in Israel’s Story challenges us to risk our reliable understandings of self and community to embrace Christ crucified and the other in Christ.Less
The self has become a problem in postmodern thought, and this problem poses a sharp challenge for dialogue between Christians and others who tell different stories of self and community. A healthy suspicion of the self’s transcendence lets the self approach the other in humility, but what can create the community where the self and other can embrace? Paul was humbled before Christ, yet to embrace the crucified Christ in one community he had to retell his community’s story. Can the Church today repeat Paul’s costly embrace? Paul in Israel’s Story addresses the problem of the self in community in a theological hermeneutics that brings together recent biblical scholarship and constructive theology. Proponents and critics of the new perspective on Paul join philosophers in an ongoing conversation about selfhood. Paul’s story extends Paul Ricoeur’s “hermeneutics of the self” into stories of communities; hermeneutics deepens our sense of Paul’s “I have been crucified with Christ” and “Christ lives in me”. Linking hermeneutics with Paul’s story is a critical engagement with Rudolf Bultmann. Avoiding the stark either/or that can characterize critiques of Bultmann, the book reconceives demythologizing as an ongoing conversation about how to embrace the other from out of the past in one community. It concludes by situating the communal self in a contextual framework built on Jürgen Moltmann’s “community in Christ” and Robert Jenson’s pneumatology. This framework carries communal selfhood into interreligious and ecumenical dialogue, ecclesiology, and pneumatology. Just as retelling Israel’s story challenged Paul’s self-understanding, Paul in Israel’s Story challenges us to risk our reliable understandings of self and community to embrace Christ crucified and the other in Christ.
John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
After his encounter with the risen Christ, St. Paul had to retell Israel’s story, and in so doing, his own understanding of self and community underwent a profound shift. Is it possible that the ...
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After his encounter with the risen Christ, St. Paul had to retell Israel’s story, and in so doing, his own understanding of self and community underwent a profound shift. Is it possible that the strong tie between Paul’s understanding of self, community, and the community’s story is something we should bracket or, as Rudolf Bultmann says, demythologize? Rather, this book asserts that two conversations in philosophy and theology can mutually contribute to our present understanding of the self in community: Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self, and the new perspective debate in biblical studies about the meaning of law, works, faith and justification in St. Paul’s letters. With respect to the first conversation, the chapter places Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self in the context of theological debates about selfhood. With respect to the second conversation, the chapter demonstrates how the book’s interpretation of the Pauline texts draws critically from the new perspective studies within a Lutheran framework that is responsive to critics of the new perspective.Less
After his encounter with the risen Christ, St. Paul had to retell Israel’s story, and in so doing, his own understanding of self and community underwent a profound shift. Is it possible that the strong tie between Paul’s understanding of self, community, and the community’s story is something we should bracket or, as Rudolf Bultmann says, demythologize? Rather, this book asserts that two conversations in philosophy and theology can mutually contribute to our present understanding of the self in community: Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self, and the new perspective debate in biblical studies about the meaning of law, works, faith and justification in St. Paul’s letters. With respect to the first conversation, the chapter places Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the self in the context of theological debates about selfhood. With respect to the second conversation, the chapter demonstrates how the book’s interpretation of the Pauline texts draws critically from the new perspective studies within a Lutheran framework that is responsive to critics of the new perspective.
John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
In order to reconstruct the kind of self presupposed in Paul’s letters, this chapter explores the relation between Pauls self-understanding and the story he tells to identify Israel. As a dyadic ...
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In order to reconstruct the kind of self presupposed in Paul’s letters, this chapter explores the relation between Pauls self-understanding and the story he tells to identify Israel. As a dyadic personality, Paul understands himself in relation to Israel: “I have been crucified with Christ” signifies that Paul has died in Israel. Sacrifice symbolizes the death and resurrection of the sinner; thus, that Christ is a sacrifice means that Israel has passed through death and resurrection in its King, Jesus. Christ can be raised because he goes to the cross anointed with God’s Spirit. Christ is the righteous community in the world that goes into death and rises again. Paul recognizes, in retrospect, that this is the event that “the faith of Abraham” had always anticipated. The Pauline categories of spirit and conscience relate the crucified and resurrected self to the Spirit in the community that dies and rises with Christ.Less
In order to reconstruct the kind of self presupposed in Paul’s letters, this chapter explores the relation between Pauls self-understanding and the story he tells to identify Israel. As a dyadic personality, Paul understands himself in relation to Israel: “I have been crucified with Christ” signifies that Paul has died in Israel. Sacrifice symbolizes the death and resurrection of the sinner; thus, that Christ is a sacrifice means that Israel has passed through death and resurrection in its King, Jesus. Christ can be raised because he goes to the cross anointed with God’s Spirit. Christ is the righteous community in the world that goes into death and rises again. Paul recognizes, in retrospect, that this is the event that “the faith of Abraham” had always anticipated. The Pauline categories of spirit and conscience relate the crucified and resurrected self to the Spirit in the community that dies and rises with Christ.
John L. Meech
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306941
- eISBN:
- 9780199785018
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306945.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Should Paul’s communal sense of self remain in any sense normative for us, or is it simply an outmoded husk we should shell to get at the kernel? This chapter argues, rather, that to embrace Paul as ...
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Should Paul’s communal sense of self remain in any sense normative for us, or is it simply an outmoded husk we should shell to get at the kernel? This chapter argues, rather, that to embrace Paul as another we must take a final detour to the self through community: We must interpret Paul’s horizon, interpret our own horizon, and narrate the continuity between the two as the historical life of one community. The chapter argues that Rudolf Bultmann’s attempt to avoid this detour on appeal to a transcendental self cannot be sustained. Yet two crucial aspects of Bultmann’s work are retrieved: First, a phenomenological account articulates the transcendence of self and other in the encounter with the risen Lord. Second, a variant of demythologizing bridges the gap between Paul’s context and ours — but a demythologizing that invites greater suspicion of our own framework while affirming the work of the Spirit in our community.Less
Should Paul’s communal sense of self remain in any sense normative for us, or is it simply an outmoded husk we should shell to get at the kernel? This chapter argues, rather, that to embrace Paul as another we must take a final detour to the self through community: We must interpret Paul’s horizon, interpret our own horizon, and narrate the continuity between the two as the historical life of one community. The chapter argues that Rudolf Bultmann’s attempt to avoid this detour on appeal to a transcendental self cannot be sustained. Yet two crucial aspects of Bultmann’s work are retrieved: First, a phenomenological account articulates the transcendence of self and other in the encounter with the risen Lord. Second, a variant of demythologizing bridges the gap between Paul’s context and ours — but a demythologizing that invites greater suspicion of our own framework while affirming the work of the Spirit in our community.
Paul B. Clayton, Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198143987
- eISBN:
- 9780191711497
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198143987.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter begins by looking very briefly at the tenth sermon of Theodoret's on providence. It then examines the Isaiah and Pauline commentaries, the most important regarding the question of ...
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This chapter begins by looking very briefly at the tenth sermon of Theodoret's on providence. It then examines the Isaiah and Pauline commentaries, the most important regarding the question of Theodoret's Christology.Less
This chapter begins by looking very briefly at the tenth sermon of Theodoret's on providence. It then examines the Isaiah and Pauline commentaries, the most important regarding the question of Theodoret's Christology.
Jeffrey S. Sposato
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195149746
- eISBN:
- 9780199870783
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195149746.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter discusses Felix Mendelssohn' first major oratorio, Paulus or St. Paul. First performed in 1836, Paulus demonstrates Mendelssohn's pattern of increasing the anti-Semitic content in his ...
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This chapter discusses Felix Mendelssohn' first major oratorio, Paulus or St. Paul. First performed in 1836, Paulus demonstrates Mendelssohn's pattern of increasing the anti-Semitic content in his early sacred works. Mendelssohn rejected many of the less anti-Semitic suggestions of his libretto contributors Julius Furst, Adolf Bernhard Marx, and Julius Schubring, and modified the Biblical story of St. Paul to depict the Jews in a harsher light. Following the death of Mendelssohn's father, Abraham Mendelssohn, in 1835, Mendelssohn softened the anti-Semitic content of the published version of the score. This suggests that Mendelssohn's fear of his Jewish heritage was instilled in him by his father and lessened after his father's death. The chapter also discusses Mendelssohn's cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht, which mimics Paulus in glorifying the Germanic gentile (or heathen) heritage.Less
This chapter discusses Felix Mendelssohn' first major oratorio, Paulus or St. Paul. First performed in 1836, Paulus demonstrates Mendelssohn's pattern of increasing the anti-Semitic content in his early sacred works. Mendelssohn rejected many of the less anti-Semitic suggestions of his libretto contributors Julius Furst, Adolf Bernhard Marx, and Julius Schubring, and modified the Biblical story of St. Paul to depict the Jews in a harsher light. Following the death of Mendelssohn's father, Abraham Mendelssohn, in 1835, Mendelssohn softened the anti-Semitic content of the published version of the score. This suggests that Mendelssohn's fear of his Jewish heritage was instilled in him by his father and lessened after his father's death. The chapter also discusses Mendelssohn's cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht, which mimics Paulus in glorifying the Germanic gentile (or heathen) heritage.
Mary Morrissey
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199571765
- eISBN:
- 9780191728709
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571765.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter provides an account of the pulpit at Paul’s Cross and the arrangements for having the sermons delivered there. It demonstrates how current assumptions about the institutional stability ...
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This chapter provides an account of the pulpit at Paul’s Cross and the arrangements for having the sermons delivered there. It demonstrates how current assumptions about the institutional stability of this sermon series are mistaken. The physical space occupied by preacher and hearers, the process for appointing preachers, and the arrangements made for paying and accommodating them are explained, using newly discovered materials from the Corporation of London’s archives. The composition of the auditory is described as far as possible. The sum of these details provides us with a clearer sense of the changing reputation of Paul’s Cross as a sermon series from Elizabeth’s reign to the destruction of the pulpit, probably in 1634.Less
This chapter provides an account of the pulpit at Paul’s Cross and the arrangements for having the sermons delivered there. It demonstrates how current assumptions about the institutional stability of this sermon series are mistaken. The physical space occupied by preacher and hearers, the process for appointing preachers, and the arrangements made for paying and accommodating them are explained, using newly discovered materials from the Corporation of London’s archives. The composition of the auditory is described as far as possible. The sum of these details provides us with a clearer sense of the changing reputation of Paul’s Cross as a sermon series from Elizabeth’s reign to the destruction of the pulpit, probably in 1634.
Wm. A. Little
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195394382
- eISBN:
- 9780199863556
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394382.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Performing Practice/Studies
This chapter shows that Mendelssohn's organ part for St. Paul was the first of five separate organ parts that he composed for his own larger choral works. The other four are Lobgesang (Op. 52, 1840), ...
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This chapter shows that Mendelssohn's organ part for St. Paul was the first of five separate organ parts that he composed for his own larger choral works. The other four are Lobgesang (Op. 52, 1840), Psalm 2 (Op. 78.1, 1843), Psalm 98 (Op. 91, 1843), and Elijah (Op. 70, 1846). The scores for his other choral works, such as Psalm 42 (1839) or Psalm 95 (1839), contain only minimal directions for organ (e.g., “col organo” or “senza organo”).Less
This chapter shows that Mendelssohn's organ part for St. Paul was the first of five separate organ parts that he composed for his own larger choral works. The other four are Lobgesang (Op. 52, 1840), Psalm 2 (Op. 78.1, 1843), Psalm 98 (Op. 91, 1843), and Elijah (Op. 70, 1846). The scores for his other choral works, such as Psalm 42 (1839) or Psalm 95 (1839), contain only minimal directions for organ (e.g., “col organo” or “senza organo”).
Charles M. Stang
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199640423
- eISBN:
- 9780191738234
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199640423.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies, Religion and Literature
This book argues that the pseudonym, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the influence of Paul together constitute the best interpretive lens for understanding the Corpus Dionysiacum [CD]. This book ...
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This book argues that the pseudonym, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the influence of Paul together constitute the best interpretive lens for understanding the Corpus Dionysiacum [CD]. This book demonstrates how Paul in fact animates the entire corpus, that the influence of Paul illuminates such central themes of the CD as hierarchy, theurgy, deification, Christology, affirmation (kataphasis) and negation (apophasis), dissimilar similarities, and unknowing. Most importantly, Paul serves as a fulcrum for the expression of a new theological anthropology, an “apophatic anthropology.” Dionysius figures Paul as the premier apostolic witness to this apophatic anthropology, as the ecstatic lover of the divine who confesses to the rupture of his self and the indwelling of the divine in Gal 2:20: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Building on this notion of apophatic anthropology, the book forwards an explanation for why this sixth‐century author chose to write under an apostolic pseudonym. It argues that the very practice of pseudonymous writing itself serves as an ecstatic devotional exercise whereby the writer becomes split in two and thereby open to the indwelling of the divine. Pseudonymity is on this interpretation integral and internal to the aims of the wider mystical enterprise. Thus this book aims to question the distinction between “theory” and “practice” by demonstrating that negative theology—often figured as a speculative and rarefied theory regarding the transcendence of God—is in fact best understood as a kind of asceticism, a devotional practice aiming for the total transformation of the Christian subject.Less
This book argues that the pseudonym, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the influence of Paul together constitute the best interpretive lens for understanding the Corpus Dionysiacum [CD]. This book demonstrates how Paul in fact animates the entire corpus, that the influence of Paul illuminates such central themes of the CD as hierarchy, theurgy, deification, Christology, affirmation (kataphasis) and negation (apophasis), dissimilar similarities, and unknowing. Most importantly, Paul serves as a fulcrum for the expression of a new theological anthropology, an “apophatic anthropology.” Dionysius figures Paul as the premier apostolic witness to this apophatic anthropology, as the ecstatic lover of the divine who confesses to the rupture of his self and the indwelling of the divine in Gal 2:20: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Building on this notion of apophatic anthropology, the book forwards an explanation for why this sixth‐century author chose to write under an apostolic pseudonym. It argues that the very practice of pseudonymous writing itself serves as an ecstatic devotional exercise whereby the writer becomes split in two and thereby open to the indwelling of the divine. Pseudonymity is on this interpretation integral and internal to the aims of the wider mystical enterprise. Thus this book aims to question the distinction between “theory” and “practice” by demonstrating that negative theology—often figured as a speculative and rarefied theory regarding the transcendence of God—is in fact best understood as a kind of asceticism, a devotional practice aiming for the total transformation of the Christian subject.
Michael Patrick Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195333527
- eISBN:
- 9780199868896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333527.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Chapter 3 focuses on Balthasar's theological aesthetics as a well‐articulated critical methodology. Balthasar's fusion of aesthetics with history forges both a Christology and an analogy of being ...
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Chapter 3 focuses on Balthasar's theological aesthetics as a well‐articulated critical methodology. Balthasar's fusion of aesthetics with history forges both a Christology and an analogy of being that is developed in light of that Christology. Balthasar urges us to “see the form [of Christ]” in all manner of being and experience—human activities, natural phenomena, and especially human works of art. “Seeing the form” becomes a central critical and theological hermeneutic; and the chapter cultivates a parallel between “seeing the form” and interpreting, broadly, the “word(s)” of narrative art. The first three sections of the chapter develop an aesthetics of a representative word (in this case, the term “hierarchy”); the last section is an application of what is gleaned from the first three upon Flannery O'Connor's “Revelation.” While a close reading of O'Connor's text serves as a literary exemplum of a Catholic imagination, other poets and authors who demonstrate a similar theological aesthetic are considered in order round out the discussion.Less
Chapter 3 focuses on Balthasar's theological aesthetics as a well‐articulated critical methodology. Balthasar's fusion of aesthetics with history forges both a Christology and an analogy of being that is developed in light of that Christology. Balthasar urges us to “see the form [of Christ]” in all manner of being and experience—human activities, natural phenomena, and especially human works of art. “Seeing the form” becomes a central critical and theological hermeneutic; and the chapter cultivates a parallel between “seeing the form” and interpreting, broadly, the “word(s)” of narrative art. The first three sections of the chapter develop an aesthetics of a representative word (in this case, the term “hierarchy”); the last section is an application of what is gleaned from the first three upon Flannery O'Connor's “Revelation.” While a close reading of O'Connor's text serves as a literary exemplum of a Catholic imagination, other poets and authors who demonstrate a similar theological aesthetic are considered in order round out the discussion.
