The Bible Culture, Community, Society [Hardcover]

What kind of authority does Scripture have? How is Scripture's authority to be negotiated in relation to other sources of authority? And what are the implications of confessing the Bible to be authoritative? The Bible: Culture, Community and Society seeks to answer these questions, covering three core themes. First, reading the Bible in the context of modernity - the challenges the intellectual history of modernity has posed to the Bible's authority and how historical work can co-exist with a commitment to the Bible as the Word of God. Secondly, the Bible as a text that forms the church community - how the Bible as an authoritative text shapes a culture. Thirdly, reading the Bible as a public text and the challenges posed by holding to the Bible as the Word of God in a religiously diverse context. The highly distinguished contributors include Ben Quash, David Ferguson, Angus Paddison and Zo? Bennett.

This book brings ethical, political, historical, and theological questions into contact with the Bible as a living, authoritative text.

IntroductionNeil Messer and Angus Paddison
Part I - Reading the Bible in Modernity: The Authority of the Bible in an Age of Science and History
The Bible in ModernityDavid Fergusson
Science and the Bible Adam and his Fall as a Case StudyRichard Bell
History and the Bible The Bible, The Means of Life, and the Historical ImaginationEllen Davis
Part II - The Bible as a Formative Text: Reading the Bible in the Church and Community
John Ruskin and the BibleZo? Bennett
Community, Imagination and the BibleBen Quash
Part III - Reading the Bible in Public
Reading the Bible Amidst the World FaithsGavin D'Costa
The Bible and Public TheologyAndrew Bradstock
The Bible: What Kind of Authority?Angus Paddison and Neil Messer

Neil Messeris Reader in Theology and Head of the Department of Theology and Religioul£+