Recruiting the Ancients for the Creation Debate

Recruiting the Ancients for the Creation Debate
Author: Andrew J. Brown
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2023-10-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467467626

A careful and unbiased analysis of how thinkers from church history interpreted the creation narrative in Genesis How literally are we meant to take the creation week of Genesis 1? In this polarizing debate, contemporary interpreters invoke great theologians from history to support their own side, whether that be a young Earth or theistic evolution. The problem lies in trying to force ancient authors into contemporary boxes, as Andrew J. Brown shows in this thought-provoking volume. Covering Philo, Basil, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and more, Brown carefully interprets great thinkers’ readings of Genesis 1 in their intellectual contexts. He then assesses how these authors have been subject to cherry-picking and misappropriation in the trenches of the modern creation debate. By studying the intellectual history of the church in this way—to revisit rather than recruit the ancients—we can enrich our own biblical interpretation. Irenic and magisterial, Brown’s guide will interest both scholars of historical theology and anyone invested in the creation debate.

The Days of Creation

The Days of Creation
Author: Andrew J. Brown
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004397531

The Days of Creation examines the history of Christian interpretation of the seven-day framework of Genesis 1:1–2:3 in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from the post-apostolic era to the debates surrounding Essays and Reviews (1860). Included in the survey are patristic, medieval, Renaissance/Reformation, eighteenth-century Enlightenment and finally early to mid-nineteenth-century interpretations of the days of creation. This study enables an insight into the mighty career of a biblical text of seminal importance, and fills a significant niche in reception-historical research.

Faith and Fossils

Faith and Fossils
Author: Lester L. Grabbe
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2018-05-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467450499

Many books have been written on the Bible and evolution by scientists, but this volume is written by a biblical specialist. In Faith and Fossils Lester Grabbe, a prominent Hebrew Bible scholar, examines the Bible in its ancient context and explores its meaning in light of emerging scientific evidence. Both the Bible and the fossil record raise significant questions about what it means to be human, and Grabbe expertly draws on both sources to grapple with who we are and where we came from. Written in uncomplicated language and featuring eleven spectacular color plates, Grabbe’s Faith and Fossilscreatively shows how science and faith intersect in questions about human origins.

A New Copernican Turn

A New Copernican Turn
Author: Doru Costache
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2024-07-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1040133657

This short book discusses the latest in terms of cosmology’s knowns and unknowns and sets out to ascertain the potential of Orthodox Christian theology for accommodating the current scientific view of the universe. It also addresses one of cosmology’s unknowns, the destiny of the self in the vastness of space, a topic that has caused angst since the dawn of modern science. The book examines, accordingly, the signs of a “New Copernican Turn” within contemporary culture, favouring the self and its meaningful encounters with the infinite universe, at the forefront of which being the quest for a physics that views something akin to the self as undergirding reality, not as an inconsequential byproduct of natural phenomena. The book further shows that theological, spiritual, and religious forms of nature contemplation and wonder facilitate the self’s creative intersection with the universe. It amounts to an exercise in science-engaged Orthodox theology that takes contemporary cosmology as a starting point. The intended audience of this book is scholars and researchers of science and religion, religious studies, philosophers, and theologians.

Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic

Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic
Author: Frank Moore CROSS
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0674030087

Annotation The essays contained in this book are preliminary studies directed toward a new synthesis of the history of the religion of Israel. Each study is addressed to a special and, in the authors view, unsolved problem in the description of Israel's religious development.

God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering

God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering
Author: Bethany N. Sollereder
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2018-10-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0429881851

After the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, theologians were faced with the dilemma of God creating through evolution. Suddenly, pain, suffering, untimely death and extinction appeared to be the very tools of creation, and not a result of the sin of humanity. Despite this paradigm shift, the question of non-human suffering has been largely overlooked within theodicy debates, overwhelmed by the extreme human suffering of the twentieth century. This book redresses this imbalance by offering a rigorous academic treatment of the questions surrounding God and the suffering of non-human animals. Combining theological, philosophical, and biblical perspectives, this book explores the relationship between God and Creation within Christian theology. First it dismantles the popular theological view that roots violence and suffering in the animal kingdom in the fall of humanity. Then, through an exploration of the nature of love, it affirms that there are multiple reasons to suggest that God and creation can both be "good", even with the presence of violence and suffering. This is an innovative exploration of an under-examined subject that encompasses issues of theology, science, morality and human-animal interactions. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars and academics of religion and science, the philosophy of religion, theodicy, and biblical studies.

Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory

Reformed Theology and Evolutionary Theory
Author: Gijsbert Van den Brink
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 484
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1467458767

Many books aim to help beginners explore whether or not evolutionary science is compatible with Christian faith. This one probes more deeply to ask: What do we learn from modern evolutionary science about key issues that are of special theological concern? And what does Christian theology, especially in its Reformed expressions, say about those same key issues? Gijsbert van den Brink begins by describing the layers of meaning in the phrase “evolutionary theory” and exploring the question of how to interpret the Bible with regard to science. He then works through five key areas of potential conflict between evolutionary theory and Christian faith, spelling out scientific findings and analyzing Christian doctrinal concerns along the way. His conclusion: although some traditional doctrinal interpretations must be adjusted, evolutionary science is no obstacle to classical Christian faith.

The Fool and the Heretic

The Fool and the Heretic
Author: Todd Charles Wood
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2019-02-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310595444

The Fool and the Heretic is a deeply personal story told by two respected scientists who hold opposing views on the topic of origins, share a common faith in Jesus Christ, and began a sometimes-painful journey to explore how they can remain in Christian fellowship when each thinks the other is harming the church. To some in the church, anyone who accepts the theory of evolution has rejected biblical teaching and is therefore thought of as a heretic. To many outside the church as well as a growing number of evangelicals, anyone who accepts the view that God created the earth in six days a few thousand years ago must be poorly educated and ignorant--a fool. Todd Wood and Darrel Falk know what it's like to be thought of, respectively, as a fool and a heretic. This book shares their pain in wearing those labels, but more important, provides a model for how faithful Christians can hold opposing views on deeply divisive issues yet grow deeper in their relationship to each other and to God.

Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins

Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins
Author: Robert C. Bishop
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 690
Release: 2018-12-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830891641

From five authors with over two decades of experience teaching origins together in the classroom, this is the first textbook to offer a full-fledged discussion of the scientific narrative of origins from the Big Bang through humankind, from biblical and theological perspectives. This work gives the reader a detailed picture of mainstream scientific theories of origins along with how they fit into the story of God's creative and redemptive action.