2. Changing Attitudes to Scripture

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we explore changing attitudes to scripture throughout history, focusing in particular on (i) the continuity of the privileged view of scriptural authority in the medieval period (ii) the privileged view of scriptural authority coming under suspicion and scrutiny during the Enlightenment (iii) the priority of reason over revelation after the Enlightenment (iv) the diminution in the significance of the Church following the French revolution (v) the displacement of the Bible as the central authority in western life (v) the interest in investigation of the Bible as a historical text from antiquity following these developments, and the origins of critical intellectual study of scriptural texts.

Course

In this course, Dr James Carleton Paget (University of Cambridge) explores a variety of ways of interpreting scripture and a brief history of biblical exegesis. In the first module, we introduce the foundations underpinning the notion of scripture as inspired; both from the text itself and Ancient Jewish thinkers from Alexandria. In the second module, we examine changing attitudes to scripture from the Enlightenment, and growing interests in historical and critical study of the Bible. In the third module, we come to look at Friedrich Schleiermacher and David Friedrich Strauss’ contributions to biblical criticism, before turning our attention to a range of modern interpretations of scripture in the fourth module. In the fifth and final module, we focus on the significance of Karl Barth’s contributions to the study of scripture, and the challenges which he presents to modernity.

Lecturer

James Carleton Paget is a lecturer in New Testament Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are research interests in Jewish-Christian relations in antiquity, ancient Jewish Christianity, inter-testamental Judaism and the history of ancient biblical interpretation. His publications include Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity (2010) and The Epistle of Barnabas: Outlook and Background (1994)