Reading Scripture with Paul Ricoeur

(Hardback)

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Reading Scripture with Paul Ricoeur is a unique volume in which twelve diverse contributors illuminate and analyze Paul Ricoeurs personal religious faith and intellectual passion for Scripture. The co-editors, Joseph A. Edelheit and James F Moore, each studied with Ricoeur at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and bring the perspectives of a rabbi and of a Lutheran pastor and theologian, respectively. This book engages topics such as translation, biblical hermeneutics, and prophecy, as well as specific scriptural passages: Cain and Abel, the Epistles, and a feminist reading of Rahab. It provides both students and scholars alike a new resource of reflections using Ricoeurs scholarship to illuminate and model how Ricoeur read and taught.

Reviews

"Ironically, the Bible has become a stumbling block, to the Jew and the Greek and just about everyone else. It's used as a cudgel when it should be a text of healing and reconciliation. So now, more than ever, we need the hermeneutical vision of Paul Ricoeur, for he reminded us that the eschatological horizon of scripture implicates us, embraces us, and, most importantly, helps us to understand ourselves. In the capable hands of Edelheit and Moore and their collaborators, readers of this book will be rewarded with a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the text that Ricoeur loved above all others."

-- Tony Jones, author of "Did God Kill Jesus Searching for Love in History's Most Famous Execution"

"For readers new to Ricoeur, these essays offer a way into his thought and contributions to philosophy, ethics, and biblical interpretation. To the already familiar, they pose challenges to dig deeper and apply Ricoeur's insights to texts that impact common assumptions regarding gender, politics, and biblical authority. In the spirit of Ricoeur, they invite readers to find and see themselves among other creatures inside the world of biblical texts, which are both created by a community and in turn perpetually recreate that community. Finally, they summon readers of every generation to engage in genuine dialogue from which they dare never walk away."

-- Fred Niedner, Valparaiso University

"This brilliant compilation of essays by leading literary, philosophical, and theological lights showcases the fecundity of Paul Ricoeur's interpretations of the Bible. Neither a biblical literalist nor a secular fundamentalist, Ricoeur was a philosopher who sought to listen to the summons of the scriptural texts. This cutting-edge collection--both comprehensive in its philosophical range and focused in its attention to particular biblical stories--will delight readers who have learned, as Ricoeur famously put it, that 'it is by interpreting that we can hear again.'"

-- Mark Wallace, Swarthmore College

Author Bio

Joseph A. Edelheit is emeritus professor religious and Jewish studies at St. Cloud State University.

James F. Moore is professor of theology at Valparaiso University.