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In The Intertextual Reception of Genesis 1-3 in Irenaeus of Lyons, Stephen Presley explores the intertextual nature of Irenaeus’ interpretation of Genesis 1-3 by drawing on contemporary discussions on the topic. Irenaeus interprets the creation accounts, Presley argues, in continuity with the rest of the scriptural witness through a series of reading strategies including: a literary sense, prophetic fulfillment, typology, philological associations, organizational strategies, narratival arrangements, prosopological interpretation, illustrative identification, and general-to-particular reasoning. Irenaeus’ perspective competes with his Gnostic interlocutors who utilize similar methods of interpretation, but fashion distinctive textual relationships between Genesis 1-3 and other texts. These reading strategies circumscribe precisely how Irenaeus’ intertextual exegesis is applied to these creation texts within the integrative structure of his theological perspective.
Biblical Theology in the Life of the Early Church recasts biblical theology as a practice cultivated in Christian community rather than a solely academic pursuit. Stephen Presley argues that the early church fathers crafted an ecclesial biblical theology that was lived out communally and oriented believers toward beholding God's glory. This volume brings patristic biblical interpretation into conversation with contemporary biblical theology, exploring how assumptions and methods of figures such as Irenaeus and Augustine can guide modern hermeneutics. Presley shows how early Christian theologians emphasized virtue and discipleship alongside exegesis, patiently shaping readers to inhabit Scripture's narrative. He illuminates the catechetical and liturgical scaffolding that informed patristic biblical theology, centered on Christ as the cornerstone. Students and scholars of theology, church history, hermeneutics, and patristics will find valuable new insights.
How to keep faith in a culture hostile to Christianity In an increasingly secular world, Christians are often pulled in two directions. Some urge us to retreat and build insular communities. Others call upon us to wage a culture war, harnessing the government to shore up Christian cultural power. But there is another way—and it’s as old as the church itself. Stephen O. Presley takes us back to the first few centuries AD to show us how the first Christians approached cultural engagement. Amid a pagan culture that regarded their faith with suspicion, early Christians founded a religious movement that transformed the ancient world. Looking to great theologians like Augustine, Origen, and Te...
Provides a new history of catechesis in early Latin Christianity that foregrounds core questions of knowledge, faith, and teaching.
In The Trinitarian Testimony of the Spirit, Kyle R. Hughes offers a new approach to the development of early Christian pneumatology by focusing on how Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian linked the Holy Spirit with testimony to the deity and lordship of the Father and the Son. Drawing extensively on recent studies of prosopological exegesis and divine testimony in the ancient world, Hughes demonstrates how these three pre-Nicene Christian writers utilized Scripture and the conventions of ancient rhetoric and exegesis to formulate a highly innovative approach to the Holy Spirit that would contribute to the identification of the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity.
How and when did Jesus and the Spirit come to be regarded as fully God? The Birth of the Trinity offers a new historical approach by exploring the way in which first- and second-century Christians read the Old Testament in order to differentiate the one God as multiple persons. The earliest Christians felt they could metaphorically 'overhear' divine conversations between Father, Son, and Spirit when reading the Old Testament. When these snatches of dialogue are connected and joined, they form a narrative about the unfolding interior divine life as understood by the nascent church. What emerges is not a static portrait of the triune God, but a developing story of divine persons enacting mutual esteem, voiced praise, collaborative strategy, and self-sacrificial love. The presence of divine dialogue in the New Testament and early Christian literature shows that, contrary to the claims of James Dunn and Bart Ehrman (among others), the earliest Christology was the highest Christology, as Jesus was identified as a divine person through Old Testament interpretation.
In Taught by God, theologian Brandon D. Smith invites modern Christians to rediscover the early church’s approach to biblical interpretation, not just as an historical relic but as a vibrant means of understanding the Bible today. Smith introduces three “sensibilities” that Christians throughout church history have shared: a concern for Scripture’s very words, its theological and Christological unity, and its importance for the church. Through biblical and historical examples, Taught by God challenges the modern church to read and interpret Scripture with the great cloud of historical witnesses. Short, easy-to-understand, and extensively researched, Taught by God invites readers to discover further riches in Scripture. These riches take Scripture’s divine inspiration and the Christian tradition’s reflections on Scripture seriously in order to inspire ever-greater worship of the ultimate author of all Scripture.
After hundreds of years during which Eve was blamed for originating sin, St. Paul removed her from the narrative of the fall to create a "one man"/"one man" typology between Adam as the origin of sin and Christ as the source of salvation. This disappearance created a theological problem. Eve fell outside the narrative of sin and salvation. Early Christians, sensing the lack in Paul's formula, created an alternative typology between Eve, the mother of all the living, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Eventually, early theologians attempted to solve the soteriological problem Eve posed by coordinating these two typologies. This solution, however, produced a furthur dilemma. Either Mary had to be ...
The doctrine of special revelation and the role of Holy Scripture have been central to the Christian faith for two thousand years. Yet, the nature, authority, and interpretation of the Bible continue to be discussed and debated. In their book Special Revelation and Scripture, David S. Dockery and Malcolm B. Yarnell III explore the fundamental elements of divine revelation, such as inspiration, reliability, and authority, and how these elements influence and shape the Christian's understanding of theological doctrines, ethical teachings, and matters concerning worldview. Dockery and Yarnell begin by developing the doctrine of divine revelation that emphasizes the Bible as the revealed word of...
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