Reading Texts, Seeking Wisdom: Scripture and Theology

Wisdom is both a theme in scripture and desirable in biblical interpretation and theology. It proves a fruitful focus for eighteen leading scripture scholars and theologians as they engage with key issues and texts to do with scripture and theology. They look at how the Bible and theology have come together in the past - in Judaism, the early Church, the Middle Ages, early modernity, and the twentieth century. How is current biblical scholarship to be related to past insights and modern methods? Contributors debate how wisdom is to be related to faith and to reason. Jesus is discussed as 'the wisdom of God'. There is intensive engagement with a set of relevant texts: a Jewish scholar faces the challenge of genocidal texts in Deuteronomy, the book of Jonah is seen as a 'way of wisdom', two contributors engage with the opening of the Letter to the Colossians, and the significance of Jesus as interpreter of scripture at the end of Luke's Gospel is explored. Finally the book looks ahead to what is desirable in the relating of scripture to theology. Originating from the prestigious Lady Margaret 500th Lectures, March 2002 at the University of Cambridge, this book offers a rare and engaging sense of dialogue and debate between biblical scholars and theologians. Contributors: Richard Bauckham, Markus Bockmuehl, James Dunn, David F. Ford, Daniel Hardy, Martin Hengel, Morna Hooker, William Horbury, Paul Joyce, Diana Lipton, Walter Moberly, Robert Morgan, Christopher Rowland, Graham Stanton, Denys Tuener, John Webster, Rowan Williams and Frances Young. David F. Ford is Regius Professor of Divinity and Fellow of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Graham Stanton was Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge.