Overview

Exploring Kierkegaard's complex use of the Bible, the essays in this volume use source-critical research and tools ranging from literary criticism to theology and biblical studies, to situate Kierkegaard's appropriation of the biblical material in his cultural and intellectual context. The contributors seek to identify the possible sources that may have influenced Kierkegaard's understanding and employment of Scripture, and to describe the debates about the Bible that may have shaped, perhaps indirectly, his attitudes toward Scripture. They also pay close attention to Kierkegaard's actual hermeneutic practice, analyzing the implicit interpretive moves that he makes as well as his more explicit statements about the significance of various biblical passages. This close reading of Kierkegaard's texts elucidates the unique and sometimes odd features of his frequent appeals to Scripture. This volume in the series devotes one tome to the Old Testament and a second tome to the New Testament. As with the Old Testament, Kierkegaard was aware of new developments in New Testament scholarship, and troubled by them. Because these scholarly projects generated alternative understandings of the significance of Jesus, they impinged directly on his own work. It was crucial for Kierkegaard that Jesus is presented as both the enactment of God's reconciliation with humanity and as the prototype for humanity to emulate. Consequently, Kierkegaard had to struggle with the proper way to explicate persuasively the significance of Jesus in a situation of decreasing academic consensus about Jesus. He also had to contend with contested interpretations of James and Paul, two biblical authors vital for his work. As a result, Kierkegaard ruminated about the proper way to appropriate the New Testament and used material from it carefully and deliberately. The authors in the present New Testament tome seek to clarify different dimensions of Kierkegaard's interpretive theory and practice as he sought to avoid the twin pitfalls of academic skepticism and passionless biblical traditionalism.

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9781032099385

Table of Contents

Reviews

'Lee Barrett and Jon Stewart have given to the international community of Kierkegaard scholars an excellent collection of articles on Kierkegaard and the New Testament... Each author in the volume has written with keenness of mind and heart about Kierkegaard and his approach to the Bible. The book makes a very significant contribution to Kierkegaard and biblical scholarship. May it receive the kind of attention in the scholarly community it so richly deserves.' SAren Kierkegaard Newsletter

'Lee Barrett and Jon Stewart have given to the international community of Kierkegaard scholars an excellent collection of articles on Kierkegaard and the New Testament... Each author in the volume has written with keenness of mind and heart about Kierkegaard and his approach to the Bible. The book makes a very significant contribution to Kierkegaard and biblical scholarship. May it receive the kind of attention in the scholarly community it so richly deserves.' Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter

Author Information

Professor Lee C. Barrett lectures at Lancaster Theological Seminary in the USA. Jon Stewart is an Associate Research Professor in the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

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