About the Book
Table of Contents:
An Invitation instead of an Introduction
Sola Scriptura within an Ecumenical Perspective
1. Ten Theses
Hermeneutical Developments
2. Sola Scriptura as a Committed Guide for Reading: A Protestant Perspective
3. All Must Interpret for All, and All Can Err: A Roman Catholic Perspective
4. The Church Fathers Can Guide but not Replace One's Own Understanding: An Orthodox Perspective
Methodological Developments
5. How Scripture Interprets Itself: The Intertextual Composition of New Testament Literature as a Basis for the Canon of the Old and New Testaments and the Canon as a Guide for Reading
6. Reception Aesthetic and Historical Insights: Memory Culture and the Assignment of Humility and Responsibility in the Interpretation of Scripture
7. The Concurrence of Readers and That Which Is Read: How the Book Being Read Becomes the Book of Life--How the Bible Can Become Present
Ecumenical Developments
8. Together on the Way--Or: There are No First and Second-Class Christians
9. Even the Others Understand the Bible Reasonably
10. One Can Learn from and Be Enriched by Others
Enabling Scriptural Ecumenical Praxis
11. Participating in the Lord's Supper Together-- Celebrating the Eucharist Together
12. Together with the Lord on the Way to the Lord
13. Hopeful Acting Together
Bibliography
Notes
About the Author :
Stefan Alkier is professor of New Testament and the history of the early church at Fachbereich Evangelische Theologie, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He is the author of numerous volumes, including Reading the Bible Intertextually (2009), Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation (2012), Miracles Revisited: New Testament Miracle Stories and Their Concepts of Reality (2013), and The Reality of the Resurrection: The New Testament Witness (2013).
Christos Karakolis is a professor of New Testament at the Department of Theology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He is also a research fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa, and the University of Regensburg, Germany.
Tobias Nicklas is a professor of New Testament studies and director of the Centre for Advanced Studies "Beyond Canon" at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He is research associate in the Department of New Testament at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, and adjunct ordinary professor at Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.
David M. Moffitt is professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (2011), which was the recipient of a Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise in 2013. He is coeditor of Son, Sacrifice, and Great Shepherd: Studies on the Epistle to the Hebrews (2020) and A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven: Essays on Christology and Ethics in Honor of Richard B. Hays (2021). He has also published numerous scholarly articles and essays.
Review :
If all Christians believe that the Old and New Testaments of Holy Scripture are the authoritative witness to the Word of God, what might happen if they learned to read it with others from whom they are divided in the hope of displaying more visibly the unity for which Christ prayed? The authors suggest that the path toward repairing the divisions of the Great Schism between East and West and the subsequent fragmentation of the Protestant Reformation lies in reading Scripture together. The chapters provide interweaving conversations on scriptural interpretation that are attentive to the deep convictions of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches and deeply informed by the most recent European and American biblical scholarship. The explorations of sola scriptura and intratextuality, tradition and ecclesia, reception aesthetics and hermeneutical openness, and much more are a remarkable gift. --Curtis W. Freeman, research professor of theology and Ruth D. Duncan Director of the Baptist House of Studies, Duke University Divinity School
This fascinating book shows that the ecumenical imperative has not weakened. The book also stands out as a vivid and powerful portrait of contemporary theological and confessional viewpoints in Germany and on the continent, many of which break quite sharply and decisively in intriguing and controversial ways with the traditional dogmatic self-understandings of Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox. The result is a path toward a new form of Christianity which deserves to be understood and assessed. --Matthew Levering, James N. Jr. and Mary D. Perry Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary
In a time of deep cultural and ecclesial divisions, The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation offers hope for a renewal of responsible, holistic biblical interpretation that can unite Christians of various traditions--a goal that resonates in many ways with my own thirty-plus years of ecumenical activity in both the church and the academy. This volume, displaying three diverse but mutually respectful voices, offers profound, practical, and sometimes provocative proposals about the centrality and significance of Scripture in the life of the church. --Michael J. Gorman, Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore, and former dean, St. Mary's Ecumenical Institute
Three theologians (Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox) walk into a bar--to talk about sola scriptura. The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation is no joke, however. It is, rather, a stirring call to lift up Scripture over one's own denominational identity. After centuries of church conflict over biblical interpretation, these representatives of the three historical branches of the Christian church have seen fit to apply the watchword of peacemakers ("In essentials, unity") to hermeneutics. Their Ten Theses on Scripture and its interpretation, along with the rest of the book, deserve to be widely read, discussed, and, where appropriate, implemented. The Promise of Ecumenical Interpretation responds to Paul's call to maintain the unity of the Spirit: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph 4:5). --Kevin J. Vanhoozer, research professor of systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and author of The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology
