Series title supplied from book jacket. Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-332) and indexes.
Contents:
8. The waiting chalice : natural theology and the Missio Dei. 1. The fallen shrine : Lisbon 1755 and the triumph of Epicureanism -- 2. The questioned book : critical scholarship and the Gospels -- II. History, eschatology and apocalyptic -- 3. The shifting sand : the meanings of 'history' -- 4. The end of the world? : eschatology and apocalyptic in historical perspective -- III. Jesus and Easter in the Jewish world -- 5. The stone the builders rejected : Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom -- 6. The new creation : resurrection and epistemology -- IV. The peril and promise of natural theology -- 7. Broken signposts? : new answers to the right questions -- 8. The waiting chalice : natural theology and the Missio Dei.
Summary:
"History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology represents the first Gifford delivered by a New Testament scholar since Rudolf Bultmann in 1955. Against Bultmann's dehistoricized approach, N. T. Wright argues that, since the philosophical and cultural movements that generated the natural theology debates also treated Jesus as a genuine human being--part of the "natural world"--there is no reason the historical Jesus should be off-limits. What would happen if we brought him back into the discussion? What, in particular, might "history" and "eschatology" really mean? And what might that say about "knowledge" itself? This lively and wide-ranging discussion invites us to see Jesus himself in a different light by better acquainting ourselves with the first-century Jewish world. Genuine historical study challenges not only what we thought we knew but how we know it. The crucifixion of the subsequently resurrected Jesus, as solid an event as any in the "natural" world, turns out to meet, in unexpected and suggestive ways, the puzzles of the ultimate questions asked by every culture. At the same time, these events open up vistas of the eschatological promise held out to the entire natural order. The result is a larger vision, both of "natural theology" and of Jesus himself, than either the academy or the church has normally expected."--Publisher statement
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.