Episodes
Monday Jan 22, 2018
Lynn Cohick & Amy Brown Hughes - Christian Women in the Patristic World
Monday Jan 22, 2018
Monday Jan 22, 2018
Episode: Gender is a hot-button topic. The validity and limits of "gender roles" remains a controversial issue in the church. Meanwhile early Christian theology is all about the church Fathers--at least this is the mindset in some circles. While it may be acknowledged that women were vital to the development of early Christianity, for those nurtured in such circles, any notion of women making lasting theological contributions is simply silly or wishful thinking. The period from 100-600 AD is called the Patristic era in common parlance for a reason. Lynn Cohick and Amy Brown Hughes bringing compelling contrary evidence and a balanced perspective, drawing from their recent book, Christian Women in the Patristic World. Join the discussion as they are welcomed by OnScript co-host Matthew Bates for a conversation about women, gender, and early Christianity.
Guests: Lynn Cohick (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. Prior to coming to Wheaton in 2000, Lynn taught for three years in Nairobi, Kenya. She researches the ways Jews and Christians lived out their faith in the ancient settings of Hellenism and the Roman Empire, and how Jews and Christians today can better appreciate and understand each other. Lynn also explores women’s lives in the ancient world. In addition to the present book, she has published Philippians (Zondervan, 2013); Ephesians (Cascade, 2010); and a book that might particularly interest our listeners, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians (Baker Academic, 2009).
Amy Brown Hughes (Ph.D., Wheaton College) is Assistant Professor of Theology at Gordon College. She has co-authored the book under discussion today, Christian Women in the Patristic World, as well as editing and contributing to various essay volumes. Amy received an M.A. in history of Christianity from Wheaton College and her B.A. in theology and historical studies from Oral Roberts University. She enjoys highlighting the contributions of minority voices to theology, especially those of women.
Book: Lynn H. Cohick and Amy Brown Hughes, Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Lecacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017). Publisher's description: From facing wild beasts in the arena to governing the Roman Empire, Christian women--as preachers and philosophers, martyrs and empresses, virgins and mothers--influenced the shape of the church in its formative centuries. This book provides in a single volume a nearly complete compendium of extant evidence about Christian women in the second through fifth centuries. It highlights the social and theological contributions they made to shaping early Christian beliefs and practices, integrating their influence into the history of the patristic church and showing how their achievements can be edifying for contemporary Christians.
The OnScript Quip (our review): Nothing beautiful is ever a waste. But lovely things can be lost or corroded by time. The delightful story of the theological contribution of women to early Christianity had been tarnished by ugly neglect. Cohick and Hughes are masterful in their restorative craft. They strip way the layers of grime to showcase the story's original splendor and vivid hues. Scholars and students will be compelled to gaze intently at this work of art. -- Matthew W. Bates, Quincy University, OnScript
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Iain Provan - The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Episode: Pour yourself a wee dram of whisky and tune in as Matt and Dru talk with Iain Provan about the perils and benefits of literal(istic) interpretation of Scripture and his new book The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor, 2017). In addition to some great convo, in this episode you'll witness the special guest appearance of an Eastern European thought leader, and a new edition of 'How Scottish Are You?'
Guest: Iain Provan is Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College (no, not Regent University) in Vancouver, BC. Provan has written numerous essays and articles, and several books including commentaries on Lamentations, 1 and 2 Kings, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs, and co-authored with Phil Long and Tremper Longman A Biblical History of Israel (John Knox Press, 2nd edition, 2015). He has also published Against the Grain: Selected Essays (Regent College Publishing, 2015), Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014) and Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World that Never Was (Baylor University Press, 2013). His most recent book, and the topic of our interview, is The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor, 2017).
Book: (from the publisher's website) The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture (Baylor, 2017). In 1517, Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of Wittenberg’s castle church. Luther’s seemingly inconsequential act ultimately launched the Reformation, a movement that forever transformed both the Church and Western culture. The repositioning of the Bible as beginning, middle, and end of Christian faith was crucial to the Reformation. Two words alone captured this emphasis on the Bible’s divine inspiration, its abiding authority, and its clarity, efficacy, and sufficiency: sola scriptura.
In the five centuries since the Reformation, the confidence Luther and the Reformers placed in the Bible has slowly eroded. Enlightened modernity came to treat the Bible like any other text, subjecting it to a near endless array of historical-critical methods derived from the sciences and philosophy. The result is that in many quarters of Protestantism today the Bible as word has ceased to be the Word.
In The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture, Iain Provan aims to restore a Reformation-like confidence in the Bible by recovering a Reformation-like reading strategy. To accomplish these aims Provan first acknowledges the value in the Church’s precritical appropriation of the Bible and, then, in a chastened use of modern and postmodern critical methods. But Provan resolutely returns to the Reformers’ affirmation of the centrality of the literal sense of the text, in the Bible’s original languages, for a right-minded biblical interpretation. In the end the volume shows that it is possible to arrive at an approach to biblical interpretation for the twenty-first century that does not simply replicate the Protestant hermeneutics of the sixteenth, but stands in fundamental continuity with them. Such lavish attention to, and importance placed upon, a seriously literal interpretation of Scripture is appropriate to the Christian confession of the word as Word—the one God’s Word for the one world.
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