Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all claim that God has given humans a revelation. Divine revelation may be either of God, or by God of propositional truth. Traditionally Christianity has claimed that the Christian revelation has involved both of these. God revealed himself in his acts in history; for example in the miracles by which he preserved the people of ancient Israel, and above all by becoming incarnate as Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose from the dead. And God also (...) revealed to us propositional truths by the teaching of Jesus and his church. Some modern theologians have denied that Christianity involves any propositional revelation, but there can be little doubt that from the second century until the eighteenth century, Christians and non-Christians were virtually unanimous in supposing that it claimed to have such a revelation, and so it is worthwhile investigating its traditional claim. This article is concerned with the Christian claim to have a propositional revelation. The first section describes the process by which Christians of past centuries have come to believe that certain propositions have been revealed. The second assesses alternative philosophical accounts of what constitutes a belief that such-and-such propositions have been revealed, being a ‘justified’ belief. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In his influential study, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Heiko Oberman had drawn two broad categories by which to classify the late medieval conception of Holy Scripture and the Catholic Tradition. The first, Tradition I, held Scripture to be the sole source of Catholic doctrine such that Tradition was equated with the exegetical contribution of the holy doctors. What Oberman deemed Tradition II maintained that Holy (...) class='Hi'>Scripture is not sufficient for the determination of Catholic doctrine such that it needed to be supplemented by a separate extra-scriptural source of revelation. And it is within Tradition II that Oberman placed William of Ockham. That is to say Ockham was deemed a proponent of a so-called ‘two-sources’ principle of divine revelation. In fact, Oberman went on to say that, “we may conclude that Occam is not just playing with the two-sources theory but that he indeed believes in the solidity of the argument in its totality.”1 Influential as Oberman’s theory has been over the past forty years, however, the strict categorization of ‘one source’ over and against ‘two-sources’ may indeed be detrimental to an assessment of Ockham’s views on the authoritative determination of Catholic doctrine.This essay will focus primarily on Ockham’s conception of biblical authority relative to that of extra-scriptural sources, most notably papal authority. We will also look at two other fourteenth-century Franciscans, his predecessor John Duns Scotus and his successor William Woodford. This will provide us with an opportunity to assess the ways in which different Franciscan theologians handled the nuances of doctrinal authority in light of the specific concerns they faced. In the case of Scotus such questions were less polemically charged than they were for Ockham and Woodford. They usually came up within the confines of his Ordinatio and pertained to doctrines that Scotus willingly embraced even as he tried to make sense of their formulation. Ockham and Woodford, on the other hand, faced flesh and blood opponents in fierce debates: Ockham against the papacy and Woodford against the English Wycliffites. In an era when the precise relationship between authoritative sources was not very well defined, we will see these latter two Franciscans take different tacks as they addressed the exigencies of the moment, thereby highlighting the flexibility of Franciscan views of scriptural and extra-scriptural authority in the fourteenth century.First, though, we can offer some perspective on Oberman’s one source/two sources dichotomy. Oberman was one among many scholars—Protestant and Catholic—charting a grand history of Scripture and Tradition in the run-up to the Second Vatican Council. Much scholarly interest was specifically focused on what the Council of Trent had meant in its formal statement of April 8, 1546 when referring to “the truth and discipline [of the Gospel] contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions.”2 In an effort to draw out the full intention of this statement scholars turned to an earlier draft to see if it could further illuminate what the Tridentine fathers meant. The earlier draft spoke of the truth and discipline of the Gospel being contained partly in the written books and partly in the unwritten traditions. In light of this fact scholars asked whether the final edition’s use of ‘and’ meant that all Catholic doctrine comes down fully in Scripture and fully in the traditions of the Church, such that either form of transmission sufficiently communicates this doctrine; or does the ‘and’ carry the weight of the earlier ‘partly’ such that Scripture contains only a portion of the truth and thus must be supplemented by unwritten traditions?Did the change from ‘partly … partly’ to ‘and’ signify a change in meaning? Not according to Oberman who was sure that the Council intended to affirm that Scripture does not contain all doctrinal truths.3 Whereas George Tavard concluded just the.. (shrink)

In HEBREW SCRIPTURES, in rabbinic literature and for most Jewish thinkers, "truth" (emet) is a character of personal relationships. Truth is fidelity to one's word, keeping promises, saying with the lips what one says in one's heart, bearing witness to what one has seen. Truth is the bond of trust between persons and between God and Humanity. In Western philosophic tradition, however, truth is a character of the claims people make about the world they experience: the correspondence between a statement (...) and the object it describes, or the coherence of a statement with what we already know about the world. As if divided by their dual allegiance to the traditions of Jerusalem and of Athens, Jewish philosophers often believe themselves forced to choose between the two meanings of truth, producing what we may call objectivist and personalist trends in Jewish thought. I suggest that, for a type of scripturally grounded Jewish philosophy, truth names the end of a process of inquiry that passes through several stages of trusting, reexamining, yearning, witnessing, critically testing, and re-sourcing. I suggest that this process bears analogy to Charles Peirce's pragmatic account of the stages of problem solving. -/- . (shrink)

Leading Particular Baptist theologian Benjamin Keach came to prominence just as an antitrinitarian theology native to England gained a stronghold. What had previously been deemed off-limits by the Establishment became a commonplace by the end of the seventeenth century based on a strict biblicism that eschewed the extra-biblical language of trinitarian orthodoxy. As one who considered himself a strong biblicist, Keach deftly maneuvered his theological writings between what he saw as two extremes: the one that refused to consider any language (...) that moved beyond the mere words of scripture, represented by many of his General Baptist contemporaries and the other that over-emphasized the role of tradition with no eye toward biblical truth, represented by the Roman Catholics. Keach’s explication of trinitarianism demonstrated that these two extremes did not have to be seen as competing with each other. Instead, the correct understanding of the Bible included ‘the just and necessary consequences’ that could be deduced from Scripture, and the ‘universal tradition’ aided the pastor theologian in ascertaining the truth. The result, for Keach and his audience, was an ancient view of trinitarianism that offered a way of peace between the the two extremes vying for the public ear in the late seventeenth century. (shrink)

While the history of Western philosophy as a whole can be seen as the appropriation by philosophers of the discourse of truth from the poets and makers of myth, of the replacement of the narrative form by the 'properly philosophical' form of argument, it is an appropriation that also takes place within medieval thought, particularly in the construction of theology as a legitimate academic discipline. Whether that appropriation constitutes progress or loss was as much debated in the Middle Ages as (...) it is in recent thought. I offer this medieval chapter not to take a side on the issue, but as an example of some of the presuppositions and dangers awaiting both sides of the polemic. The particular example I would like to examine is a well-known one, the conflicts over and changes in the nature of theology in the Latin twelfth century, beginning with the even more familiar conflict between Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux. I offer this essay with fully knowledge that characterizations of this conflict are cliché-ridden. It has often been seen as the conflict between the first stirrings of the modern critical spirit and the conservative, fideistic opposition, between an emerging ‘Scholastic’ and a revised ‘monastic’ theology, and/or between ‘systematic’ and ‘mystical’ theologies. (shrink)

Because critics of liberation theology have failed to note the existence of alternative contexts for doing theology, they do not recognize alternative ways of testing theological truth.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Model for the Many Senses of ScriptureFrom the Literal to the Spiritual in Genesis 22 with Thomas AquinasChristopher S. Morrissey (bio)Introduction: Many Senses Require Many TranslationsOn the mountain the Lord appeared (NETS, Gen. 22:14b)On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided (RSV)1In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen (KJV)On the mountain the LORD will see (NAB)ἐν τῷ ὄρει κύριος ὤφθη (LXX)in monte Dominus (...) videtur (Nova Vulgata)in monte Dominus videbit (St. Jerome’s Vulgate)In his book Abraham’s Curse, Bruce Chilton argues that in Gen. 22:14b, “the Septuagint’s Greek renders the Hebrew text” correctly (i.e., “with Yahweh as the subject of the verb”), whereas English translations like the King James Version (KJV) prefer to imply that the ram is the verbal subject. Chilton contends that “This is a case of translators caring more about doctrine than wording, and attempting to legislate what the Bible can say.”2Chilton’s textual exegesis does have some value. He notes that “Contextually [End Page 231] as well as grammatically, God is the subject: Yahweh ‘was seen’ on Moriah, liberating Isaac by means of divine intervention.”3 But with his polemics against the KJV, he fails to affirm the rich polysemy of the passage. He replaces one literal reading with another and then argues as if the two are at odds. But Scripture has many senses, a truth famously expressed in the medieval distich of Augustine of Dacia, best known in the version of Nicholas of Lyra: “The literal sense teaches what happened; what you believe, the allegorical; the moral, what you should do; where you are going, the anagogical.”4 Therefore Chilton is wrong to impute bad motives to anyone who would attempt to unfold the spiritual sense of a passage (“caring more about doctrine”), or even to anyone who would note that a passage has more than one literal meaning.Chilton’s own insistence on uncovering the univocal original meaning of a passage (through his preferred historical method of “generative exegesis”)5 is excessively literal, as if recourse to grammar would allow one “to legislate what the Bible can say.” When Chilton says “Yahweh ‘was seen’ on Moriah,” he is not contending that God was seen directly, literally, but rather interpreting the metaphorical or parabolical sense of the phrase “Yahweh was seen” (in Gen. 22:14b), because he glosses the meaning of the metaphor as “liberating Isaac by means of divine intervention”;6 that is, God is seen indirectly, cognitively, rather than literally with the eyes. Because literally seeing a ram is not opposed to cognitively understanding God’s action, the KJV, pace Chilton, can be defended contextually. To my mind, the Revised Standard Version (RSV), echoing the KJV, does the best job of rendering the Hebrew text literally, with “On the mount of the lord it shall be provided,” because this leaves open the many senses of the third person singular “it,” to be unfolded by exegesis. Thus more than one translation is required in order to appreciate all the significations being deployed in the treatment of “seeing” in Gen. 22:8 and 22:14. “It shall be provided”: More than one univocal sense of the “it” has to be uncovered by exegesis in this Scripture, in order to see what “it” is all about.To justify my opinion that the RSV most felicitously translates the Hebrew, I would like to prepare the way to a conclusion in which I compare the Septuagint’s translation (which follows Chilton’s preferred rendering of the context) with the Vulgate Latin translations. The path toward this conclusion will show that Chilton’s polemics, indicative of an exegetical attitude that is hostile to an appreciation of the many senses of Scripture, fail to see how the RSV translation is also defensible as keeping the reader’s mind open to the many senses of the Scriptural passage. But first things first. With the help of St. Thomas Aquinas, let me distinguish the various senses of Scripture and then point out how they are all exemplified here, all being signified by the text. [End Page 232] Click for larger view View... (shrink)

John Paul II’s Faith and Reason was written against a background of Catholic scholarship focusing notably on the New Testament, St. Augustine’s Confessions, St. Thomas’s De Veritate, and the encyclicals of various pre-Vatican II popes. A detailed, textually based critique of these early sources reveals inconsistencies and conceptual errors that are shown to carry over into Faith and Reason. John Paul II’s treatment of reason, in particular, turns out to be aberrant to the point of incoherence. It is inconceivable how (...) this reason could join with faith in a way that lifts the human spirit to a contemplation of truth, as stated in the Preface of the encyclical. There is another sense of reason, however, which demonstrably is capable of cooperating with faith to achieve this effect. This reason is free from the fetters of Neo-Scholasticism that keep John Paul II’s reason grounded. The present study joins forces with the encyclical with a detailed example of this other sense of reason in action. In this example, new truths come to light regarding the complex relation between the first and the second great commandments. (shrink)

The Canonical writings are not simply a source for the reconstruction of an historical event to which faith could then be directly related. They are an account of the Christ event and a believing witness to it.

The Book of Joshua constitutes a vital biblical resource for interpreting modern narratives of conquest and colonialism. As a historical narrative, it reveals the fluid and complex character of national memory; as a national narrative of origins, it points to processes and motifs that shaped the identities of both Israel and the United States; as a scriptural narrative, it presents a revelatory vision that illumines contemporary narratives of conquest and evokes the stories of both colonizing and colonized peoples.

In this major contribution to the study of the Chinese classics and comparative religion, John Henderson uses the history of exegesis to illuminate mental patterns that have universal and perennial significance for intellectual history. Henderson relates the Confucian commentarial tradition to other primary exegetical traditions, particularly the Homeric tradition, Vedanta, rabbinic Judaism, ancient and medieval Christian biblical exegesis, and Qur'anic exegesis. In making such comparisons, he discusses some basic assumptions common to all these traditions--such as that the classics or scriptures (...) are comprehensive or that they contain all significant knowledge or truth and analyzes the strategies deployed to support these presuppositions. As shown here, primary differences among commentarial or exegetical traditions arose from variations in their emphasis on one or another of these assumptions and strategies. Henderson demonstrates that exegetical modes of thought were far from arcane: they dominated the post-classical/premodern intellectual world. Some have persisted or re-emerged in modern times, particularly in ideologies such as Marxism. Written in an engaging and accessible style, Scripture, Canon, and Commentary is not only a challenging interpretation of comparative scriptural traditions but also an excellent introduction to the study of the Confucian classics. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Is the Bible the unembellished Word of God or the product of human agency? There are different answers to that question. And they lie at the heart of this book's powerful exploration of the fraught ways in which money, race and power shape the story of Christianity in American public life. The authors' subject is the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC: arguably the latest example of a long line of white evangelical institutions aiming to amplify and promote a (...) religious, political, and moral agenda of their own. In their careful and compelling investigation, Jill Hicks-Keeton and Cavan Concannon disclose the ways in which the Museum's exhibits reinforce a particularized and partial interpretation of the Bible's meaning. Bringing to light the Museum's implicit messaging about scriptural provenance and audience, the authors reveal how the MOTB produces a version of the Bible that in essence authorizes a certain sort of white evangelical privilege; promotes a view of history aligned with that same evangelical aspiration; and above all protects a cohort of white evangelicals from critique. They show too how the Museum collapses vital conceptual distinctions between its own conservative vision of the Bible and 'The Bible' as a cultural icon. This revelatory volume above all confirms that scripture – for all the claims made for it that it speaks only divine truth – can in the end never be separated from human politics. (shrink)

Throughout his various writings, the Israeli Jewish philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz consistently expressed a view, which many considered outrageous or at least odd, regarding the message of the Bible in general and of the Torah in particular.1 Leibowitz, himself a religious person, claimed that the fundamental scriptures of Judaism are not, and are not meant to be, articles of faith expressing metaphysical truths; they are rather the source of mitzvoth, the authorizing and regulating principles of the Jewish community. Moreover, people choosing (...) to obey the commandments should not expect to gain anything in return—in this world or the next—but should simply perform their religious duty for its own... (shrink)

Introduction: beyond reason and revelation -- Pt. I. Reading Hebrew scripture -- Ch. 1. The structure of the Hebrew Bible -- Ch. 2. What is the purpose of the Hebrew Bible? -- Ch. 3. How does the Bible make arguments of a general nature? -- The philosophy of Hebrew scripture: five studies -- Ch. 4. The ethics of a shepherd -- Ch. 5. The history of Israel, Genesis-kings: a political philosophy -- Ch. 6. Jeremiah and the problem of (...) knowing -- Ch. 7. Truth and being in Hebrew scripture -- Ch. 8. Jerusalem and carthage -- Pt. III. Conclusion -- Ch. 9. God's speech after reason and revelation -- Appendix: what is "reason"? some preliminary remarks. (shrink)

American democracy is in trouble. Ours is a time of "post-truth politics," "alternative facts," and "fake news," and one could be forgiven for expressing a sense of alarm at the fraught state of the body politic. Without even touching on any deeper philosophical or spiritual causes, the reasons for this disquieting situation are surely manifold. They encompass such factors as rising economic inequality, unregulated cash in politics, and the echo-chamber effect of media consumption in a post-Internet age.Yet a general diagnosis (...) of our political crisis is not what this essay seeks to provide. Rather, my focus is more specific: the logical and interpretive problems displayed when citizens debate with one another... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teaching the Trinity:Scripture and Performance of the Psychological Analogy in Aquinas's Summa TheologiaeZane E. ChuTeaching the Trinity, for St. Thomas Aquinas, takes its point of departure from Sacred Scripture. He makes this explicit at the outset of the Trinitarian treatise in the Summa theologiae, citing Christ's words at John 8:42, "from God I proceeded," and affirming, "divine Scripture in the things of divinity, uses words that (...) pertain to procession."1 The order of teaching then continues through speculative effort to give an account of the scriptural witness to the distinction of persons in God, in order to return to the same Scripture with a deeper grasp of its meaning.2Aquinas is a master of the sacred page, and his basic pedagogy for theology involves the "exercises of Sacred Scripture" of reading, disputing, and preaching.3 Recent scholarship draws attention to his reading of Scripture [End Page 1149] expressed in biblical commentaries as foundational for his teaching and as an interpretive context for his summative works.4 My purpose is to illustrate this basic pedagogy in the Trinitarian treatise of the Summa theologiae, taking the Lectura super Ioannem as an interpretive context for the analogies of word and love—the psychological analogy—for the Trinity. Most scholarly discussion of the psychological analogy elaborates on its theoretical aspects, with some attention to its scriptural foundation.5 I wish to show the priority of Scripture in Aquinas's employment of this analogy in three respects, namely, its foundation in exegesis, performative aspects, and orientation toward preaching.My investigation focuses on question 27 of the prima pars alongside pertinent sections of the Super Ioannem. I argue that citations from the Gospel of John (8:42, 15:26, and 14:16) in the sed contras of articles 1 and 3 function to ground the psychological analogy in scriptural exegesis and to prompt its performance. Turning to the corresponding commentary shows Aquinas leading the student to knowledge of Christ as divine Word and to love of him from the Holy Spirit that both leads to and follows upon such knowledge. This provokes an affective experience of loving Christ in knowing his divinity that is an actual performance of the psychological analogy. The magisterial responses then use this affective experience as a basis to facilitate a grasp of the analogy, the articulation of which is a further guided performance that reflects on this experience. Aquinas teaches the Trinity by exercising the student both affectively and intellectually in its scriptural foundation for a deeper grasp that prepares for preaching. I develop my argument in three [End Page 1150] main steps. First, I specify the place of Scripture in Aquinas's teaching and review the composition of the Trinitarian treatise. Then, I examine the first four articles of question 27 and corresponding sections of the Super Ioannem, in the order of the analogies of word and of love. Lastly, I consider Aquinas's treatment of the Holy Spirit's proper name of Love and subsequent preaching to illustrate Scripture as a point of arrival through performance of the psychological analogy.The Place of Scripture in Aquinas's TeachingFor Aquinas, Scripture is placed within his broader practice of sacra doctrina or holy teaching, attention to which assists in demonstrating how the Johannine citations ground the psychological analogy in Scripture and prompt its performance. Sacra doctrina has a primarily pastoral orientation, namely, to form Dominicans for preaching and hearing confessions.6 Though more speculative than practical, sacra doctrina as speculation or contemplation of the truth of Christian faith contained in Scripture is to be handed on to others.7 This requires training in the scriptural exercises of reading and disputing as preparation for preaching. These may be taken as "spiritual exercises" that engage not only thought, but also affectivity in service of personal transformation for the preacher's way of life.8 Aquinas's practice of sacra doctrina begins with reading Scripture as expressed in biblical commentaries, and develops in the Summa theologiae, which accesses Scripture through citations to offer a summative grasp of the truth contained therein. Here, I review the formal aspects of Aquinas's teaching from Scripture in these texts... (shrink)

Muslims and Christians have used the Bible and the Qur’an in their preaching and writing in order to convince each other of the unique truth of their own faith. Much of the writing has been produced in inexpensive booklets, whilst preaching takes place in public meetings using each others’ scripture. This paper examines the different Swahili versions of the Bible and the Qur’an and their reception. It then examines the use of the sacred texts of two world faiths, Christianity (...) and Islam, using the local vernacular, Swahili, in East Africa. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scriptural AuthorityA Christian (Protestant) PerspectiveReinhold BernhardtThe Sola Scriptura Principle in the Reformation MovementIn curbing the authority of the ecclesiastical Magisterium the Reformation movement brought the authority of the Holy Scripture to the forefront as the normative foundation of Christian theology. One of its basic axioms is the sola scriptura principle, meaning that all one needs to know in order to live in a salvific relation to God can (...) be acquired “by scripture alone.” This constitutes the formal, epistemological principle of Protestant theology up to today, and complements the material principles solus Christus, sola gratia, and sola fide. Whereas these material principles refer to the manifestation of salvation in Christ (alone), to the eternal ground of salvation through the grace of God (alone), and to the gift of salvation by faith (alone), the formal principle of sola scriptura calls upon the Christian to realize that these three principles of material truth are made known to us (only) by the formal principle—by Holy Scripture. “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” 1On the one hand, the Reformers taught that Holy Scripture not only offers testimony to the Word of God but also is itself of divine origin since the authors wrote under the immediate influence of God. In view of this, God is ultimately the principal author, while the writing humans are only instrumental scribes. It follows from that that the Bible possesses divine authority.On the other hand the Reformers distinguished between the Bible as the Word of God and the Word of God in the Bible. Furthermore they made a distinction between the written word of the biblical books and the “Logos,” the eternal word of God, which speaks through the words of the Bible and addresses the reader here and now, existentially. As a testimony to and a medium of the Word of God the Holy Scripture for Luther is “Christ’s spiritual body,” 2 and thus the authority of the biblical scriptures is a derived and secondary authority. This authority does not rest simply on the sacred text as such but rather on the proclamation of God’s grace-filled Lordship over nature [End Page 73] and history in general and over the individual life in particular. It is not the text as such which is to be regarded as Word of God, but the text’s message. “Message” does not refer primarily to the semantic focus of the text as intended by the human author and as understood by the reader, but to the kerygma, the living and effective word of God. The Reformers stressed the soteriological efficacy of the “Word of God” as witnessed in the Scripture. Not only does this Word bear a specific significance and lead to insight and knowledge, but it also heals the broken relationship between the human and God, imparts forgiveness, incorporates into the community of saints, creates faith, and renews life. The Bible is the instrument of God through which God reveals Godself and opens the way to salvation through faith (which signifies existential incorporation) in Christ.Let us now take a closer look at the differences among the three branches of the Reformation movement—the Lutheran, the Calvinist-Reformed, and the Spiritualist—with regard to their understanding of scriptural authority.LutheranFor Luther there is a normative core message in the New Testament, a gospel within the gospels. It consists in the “good news” of the justification of the sinner sola gratia in Christ, without any contribution on the part of the one justified. God is the author of that “good news,” though it is not expressed in all of the biblical scriptures with equal clarity. As a consequence of this difference between the gospel and the scriptures Luther assesses the relative worth of the various books of the Bible, using the gospel of unmerited and unconditionally granted grace as the criterion for interpreting and evaluating the various biblical texts. The Epistle of James, for instance, he dismissed as a stroherne Epistel—a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 126-127 [Access article in PDF] James Arthur Diamond. Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in The Guide of the Perplexed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. viii + 235. Paper, $20.95. In his text about the nature of Maimonidean text, Diamond shows us firsthand how the great medieval Jewish thinker's use of biblical (...) and rabbinic prooftexts brings life to each page of his Guide by having meaning rely ultimately on the reader's interpretive glance. Inviting us into his study with an epigraph by Rosenzweig on the integral role of quotation in Jewish medieval writing, Diamond concludes that a prooftext within Maimonides' great philosophical text, The Guide of the Perplexed, is "not merely a prop on which to hang certain philosophical propositions regarding God and his relationship to the creation but rather melds with the text to form an organic continuum of thought" (160). By showing how Maimonides has crafted a masterful "interplay of text and prooftext" (30), Diamond presents the Guide to us as "a bridge, drawing the student out of the philosophical text into the sacred texts and back again, dissolving the divide between the two in a perpetual hermeneutical crisscross" (31).Emphasizing the centrality of the role of the reader—and in particular, the reader engaged in an intertextual hermeneutic—in any appreciation of Maimonidean text, Diamond employs Ricoeurian language, speaking, for example, of how Maimonides' text, in its use of prooftexts whose efficacy lies in the reader's interpretive response, constitutes "a network of intersignification, thanks to which the isolated texts signify something else, something more" (40; quote from Ricoeur, "The Bible and the Imagination," 71). In particular, Diamond stresses how these hermeneutically charged prooftexts are used by Maimonides to penetrate through a range of—what are for Maimonides—metaphorical discourses about the Divine within the Jewish tradition. Ranging from straightforwardly anthropomorphic claims about God sitting or standing, to more subtly anthropocentric conceptions of the role of God in Providence, there are a host of biblical and rabbinic claims about God which Maimonides sees as metaphors—statements whose meanings are in no way worn on their sleeves, as it were. Mindful, though, of the potentially devastating effects of alerting all religious folk to the falsity of certain ways of thinking about God, Maimonides crafts his text—in particular, according to Diamond, in his use of intertextually pointing prooftexts—to beckon only the philosophically prepared readers to the real truths about God and Providence. These truths are neither spelled out in the prooftext nor in the further context from which said prooftext is pulled; rather, as Diamond explains, the truths emerge in the hermeneutical unfolding of text and prooftext, in the live process of the reader's intertextual investigation. In an encounter with Maimonides' Guide, intertextually pointing prooftexts thus enable a reader to fashion "a 'surplus of meaning' out of apparent semantic nonsense" (11; reference to Ricoeur's treatment of metaphor in his Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning).What is fresh, creative and new about Diamond's book is not that it alerts us to the presence of secret writing strategies in Maimonides' Guide which reveal unspoken truths about God. This idea in and of itself is quite well-rehearsed within Maimonidean scholarship. What is fresh, creative and new about Diamond's study is that, in its focus on the hermeneutical efficacy of prooftexts as central to that secret writing strategy, it actually walks us through the hermeneutical process in question, step by step, with a number of cases in point. And so, Diamond not only tells us that Maimonides uses prooftexts as a strategy for pointing careful readers to uncover unspoken truths about the Divine, but Diamond actually devotes a full-length study to showing how this works in a number of [End Page 126] concrete cases. Diamond actually engages in exegesis of Maimonides' Guide in this study of Maimonidean exegesis; he actually shows us how he thinks a number of prooftexts ought to be traced through. Using a number of Maimonidean prooftexts as his starting points, Diamond takes us from Maimonides' text... (shrink)

Scripture's Knowing is a guide to the emerging field of philosophical study of Scripture, specifically about knowing. Assuming that the Scriptures speak verbosely and persistently about knowing, what do the biblical authors have to say? How do they conceptualize ideas like truth and knowledge? Most importantly, how do we come to confidently know anything at all? Scripture's Knowing follows the discourse on knowledge through key biblical texts and shows the similarity of biblical knowing with the scientific enterprise. (...) The findings are linked to the role of ritual in knowing and implications for theologians and churches today..embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; }.embed-container iframe,.embed-container object,.embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }. (shrink)