About the Book
This Festschrift in honour of Werner G. Jeanrond, currently Master of St Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford, UK, investigates the challenge of alterity for Christianity, exploring and elaborating on this core concern in Jeanrond’s hermeneutical theology. Blurring disciplinary boundaries, more than thirty of Jeanrond’s colleagues and companions from ten countries track the dynamics of difference driven by the encounter with the self as other, the other as other, and God as the radical other.
Who is my other? What do I encounter when I encounter my other? And what responses and responsibilities does the encounter with my other evoke? Grappling with questions like these, the contributions to this compilation analyse alterity in the Bible, alterity in philosophy, alterity in theology, alterity in interreligious dialogues, and the radical alterity of God. Tying in with Jeanrond’s explorations of the many faces and facets of the other, this Festschrift ultimately aims to advocate openness to the other as a necessity for both religion and reflections on religion.
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents
Preface
List of Contributors
Introduction: Open to the Other. The Dynamics of Difference in Hermeneutical Theology - Ulrich Schmiedel, University of Oxford, UK
I Biblical Others and Other Bibles
Moses: The Significant Other - Brian Klug, University of Oxford, UK
Joseph in Egypt: Assimilation and Separation from the Other - Andrew D. H. Mayes, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Becoming ‘Another’: Nicodemus and his Relationships in the Fourth Gospel - Mary Marshall, University of Oxford, UK
The Bible, Nostra Aetate, and the Good Text-Bad Text Hermeneutics - Jesper Svartvik, Lund University, Sweden
The Alterity of the Letter: Revelation in Dei Verbum - Olivier Riaudel, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium
2 Philosophical Others and Other Philosophies
Ethics of Vision: Seeing the Other as Neighbour - Arne Grøn, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
The Outer and Inner Constitution of Human Dignity in Meister Eckhart - Dietmar Mieth, University of Tübingen, Germany
The Value of the Other - Tage Kurtén, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
Love of God and Love of One Another According to Paul - Jeffrey Bloechl, Boston College, USA
Paul Ricoeur as Other - Bengt Kristensson Uggla, Åbo Akademi University, Finland
The Other of Dialectic and Dialogue - David Tracy, University of Chicago, USA
Encountering the Other: The Concept of Encounter in Philosophy and Theology - Matthias Petzoldt, University of Leipzig, Germany
In-Between Subjectivity and Alterity: Philosophy of Dialogue and Theology of Love - Claudia Welz, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
3 Theological Others and Other Theologies
The Other Language: Religion in Modernity - Knut Wenzel, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany
Laughing at the Other - Ola Sigurdson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Foreignness as Focal Point of Otherness - Pierre Bühler, University of Zürich, Switzerland
Sexual Difference in Christian Doctrine and Symbolism: Historical Impact and Feminist Critique - Kari Elisabeth Børresen, University of Oslo, Norway
The Other on the Cross - Anne-Louise Eriksson, Stockholm School of Theology, Sweden
The Other Without and the Other Within - George Newlands, University of Glasgow, UK
Augustinian Love - Rowan Williams, University of Cambridge, UK
Who loves? Who is loved? The Problem of the Collective Personality - Johannes Zachhuber, University of Oxford, UK
Gegenüber Revisited: ‘Thirding-as-Othering’ in Karl Barth’s Concept of Space - Kjetil Hafstad, University of Oslo, Norway
4 Religious Others and Other Religions
Empathy and Otherness in Interreligious Dialogue - Catherine Cornille, Boston College, USA
In the Presence of God – Making Room for the Other: An Autobiographical Approach - Karl-Josef Kuschel, University of Tübingen, Germany
Related Rivals: How Christians and Muslims Might Relate to One Another - Susanne Heine, University of Vienna, Austria
‘Who Practices Hospitality Entertains God Himself’ - Mona Siddiqui, University of Edinburgh, UK
Beyond Indifference: Religious Traditions as Resources for Interreligious Toleration - Christoph Schwöbel, University of Tübingen, Germany
5 God as Other and the Otherness of God
Loved by the Other: Creatio ex nihilo as an Act of Divine Love - David Fergusson, University of Edinburgh, UK
The Other and the Interruption of Love - Lieven Boeve, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
The Middle English Poem Pearl: A Study in the Unfamiliar - Santha Bhattacharji, University of Oxford, UK
Finding the Otherness of God in Literature - David Jasper, University of Glasgow, UK
Index of Subjects
Index of Names
About the Author :
Ulrich Schmiedel is DPhil Candidate in Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
James M. Matarazzo, Jr, is DPhil Candidate in Theology, University of Oxford, UK.
Review :
The volume will serve several intellectual constituencies, starting from the acutely academic scholar of theology to those whose curiosities might lead them into the trained maze of philosophical musings.
[A] collection of engaging and lively essays ... [that] provokes numerous questions.
