The Comedy of Revelation: Paradise Lost and Regained in Biblical Narrative
(Hardback)
Publishing Details
The Comedy of Revelation: Paradise Lost and Regained in Biblical Narrative
By (Author) Professor Francesca Aran Murphy
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
T.& T.Clark Ltd
1st January 2001
United Kingdom
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
228.06
Physical Properties
Hardback
384
720g
Description
A highly readable and illuminating approach to biblical scholarship from the author of Christ the Form of Beauty.At a time when new approaches to biblical analysis are proliferating, Francesca Murphy opens up the literary dimension of the Bible using a lively form of narrative criticism, developing a doctrine of revelation which is both original and radically traditional. Murphy argues that the Bible is written imaginatively, and that the best way to understand its meaning is to imagine how to perform or dramatize it. She follows the sequence of heroes and heroines who carry the plot from Genesis to Revelation and presents a fresh and remarkable picture of biblical revelation as the performance of God's image in history, captured by its writers' moral imagination.
Reviews
"a highly original study, written with wit and learning." - David Jasper
Reviewed in: Church Times, 23 February 2001Highlights: "...her illuminating commentary on Revelation as the climax of a divine comedy is typical of the best features of this literary analysis of the Bible."
"...a contribution to the flourishing discipline of narrative criticism in biblical interpretation...Murphy wants to do as little theorizing as possible. Rather, she wants only to remind us that the Bible is written imaginatively, and to persuade us that the best way to understand what it is about is to dramatize it...The book is lucidly written, in an appropriately witty and humorous way...Dr Murphy is after all engaged in teaching systematic theology, and the book makes an even more remarkable contribution to the reconsideration of fundamental topics in that discipline. It could also be read with enjoyment by people who have no background or interest in systematic theology as conventionally understood."--New Blackfriars, July/August 2001
Author Bio
Dr Francesca Aran Murphy is Professor of Systematic Theology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.
