This book is about creation stories in dialogue, not only between different religious views, but also between current day scientific perspectives. International specialists, like Alan Culpepper, David Christian, John Haught, Randall Zachman, Ellen van Wolde from various disciplines are reflecting on the interface between science and religion relating questions of creation and origin. This multi-disciplinary discussion by some of the leading exponents in this field makes the book unique, not only in its depth of discussion, but also in it wide ranging interdisciplinary discussion. The point of departure of all the contributions is the prestige lecture by Alan Culpepper where he argues for bringing Biblical material into discussion with modern scientific insights relating to creation and origin.

What does failure mean for theology? In the Bible, we find some unsettling answers to this question. We find lastness usurping firstness, and foolishness undoing wisdom. We discover, too, a weakness more potent than strength, and a loss of life that is essential to finding life. Jesus himself offers an array of paradoxes and puzzles through his life and teachings. He even submits himself to humiliation and death to show the cosmos the true meaning of victory. As David Bentley Hart observes, “most of us would find Christians truly cast in the New Testament mold fairly obnoxious: civically reprobate, ideologically unsound, economically destructive, politically irresponsible, socially discreditable, and really just a bit indecent.” By incorporating the work of scholars working with a range of frameworks within the Christian tradition, Theologies of Failure aims to offer a unique and important contribution on understanding and embracing failure as a pivotal theological category. As the various contributors highlight, it is a category with a powerful capacity for illuminating our theological concerns and perspectives. It is a category that frees us to see old ideas in a brand-new light, and helps to foster an awareness of ideas that certain modes of analysis may have obscured from our vision. In short, this book invites readers to consider how both theology and failure can help us ask new questions, discover new possibilities, and refuse the ways of the world.

The essays in this volume, which span four decades, represent sustained reflection on the historical setting, narrative devices, and theology of the Gospel of John. Methodologically, the essays develop a narrative-critical approach to the Gospel, producing insights that have implications for historical and theological issues. Thematically, many of the essays explore the Gospel's ecclesiology, especilly its vision for the church and its mission. As a collection, this volume provides an introduction to the Fourth Gospel, analyses of major issues (including John's anti-Judaism, relationship to 1 John, irony, imagery, creation ethics, evil, and eschatology), and in-depth exploration of key texts, especially John 1:1-18, 2:20; 4:35-38; 5:1-18; 5:21-30; 10:1-18; 12:12-15; 13:1-20; 19:16-30; 20:19-23; and chapter 21.

Telling in current biblical postcolonial discourse that draws insights from the works of Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, and postcolonial theorists is the missing contribution of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the architect of Négritude. If mentioned at all, Senghor is often read through conclusions drawn by his critics or dismissed altogether as irrelevant to postcolonialism. Restored to its rightful place, Senghorian Negritude is a postcolonial lens for reading Scripture and other faith traditions with a view to reposition, conscientize, liberate, and rehabilitate the conquered, and enable them to reclaim their faith traditions and practices that once directed a mutual relationship between God, human, and nature—a delicate symbiosis before the French colonial advent in West Africa. A keen eye for cross-cultural analysis and contextualization enriched this volume with an intriguing reading of scripture, Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman texts in conversation with other faith traditions, particularly Senegalese Diola Religion. As a Poetics of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism, Negritude is an optic through which people of faith may look around themselves, critically reread their sacred texts, reassess their vocation, and practice mutuality with God and nature on the heels of chilling climate change. Enshrined in this innovative argument is a call for introspection and challenge for people of faith to assume their vocation—human participatory agency.

The Routledge Companion to Big History guides readers though the variety of themes and concepts that structure contemporary scholarship in the field of big history. The volume is divided into five parts, each representing current and evolving areas of interest to the community, including big history’s relationship to science, social science, the humanities, and the future, as well as teaching big history and ‘little big histories’. Considering an ever-expanding range of theoretical, pedagogical and research topics, the book addresses such questions as what is the relationship between big history and scientific research, how are big historians working with philosophers and religious thinkers to help construct ‘meaning’, how are leading theoreticians making sense of big history and its relationship to other creation narratives and paradigms, what is ‘little big history’, and how does big history impact on thinking about the future? The book highlights the place of big history in historiographical traditions and the ways in which it can be used in education and public discourse across disciplines and at all levels. A timely collection with contributions from leading proponents in the field, it is the ideal guide for those wanting to engage with the theories and concepts behind big history.

This book examines the meaning of religion within the scientific, evidence-based history of our known past since the big bang. While our current major religions are only centuries or millennia old, our volume discusses the origins and development of human religious practice and belief over our species’ existence of 300,000 years. The volume also connects the scientific approach to natural and social history with ancient truths of our religious ancestors using new lines of inquiry, new technologies, new modes of expression, and new concepts. It brings together insights of natural scientists, social scientists, philosophers, writers, and theologians to discuss narratives of the universe. The essays discuss that to apprehend religion scientifically, or to interpret and explain science theologically, the subject must be examined through a variety of disciplinary lenses simultaneously and raise several theoretical, philosophical, and moral problems. With a singular investigation into the meaning of religion in the context of the 13.8 billion-year history of our universe, this book will be indispensable for scholars and students of religious studies, big history, sociology and social anthropology, philosophy, and science and technology studies.

Most experts who seek to understand the historical Jesus focus only on the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. However, the contributors of this volume come to an important consensus: that the Gospel of John preserves traditions that are independent of the Synoptics, and which are often as reliable as any known traditions for understanding the historical Jesus. As such, the contributors argue for the use of John's Gospel in Jesus research. The volume contains various critical approaches to historical inquiry in the Gospel of John, including new evaluations of the relationship between John and the Synoptics, literary and rhetorical approaches, comparative analysis of other early traditions, the judicious use of archaeological data, and historical interpretation of John's theological tendencies. Contributing scholars include Dale C. Allison, Jr., Paul N. Anderson, Harold W. Attridge, James H. Charlesworth, R. Alan Culpepper, Michael A. Daise, Craig S. Keener, George L. Parsenios, Petr Pokorný, Jan Roskovec, and Urban C. von Wahlde, who help to reassess fully the historical study of John's gospel, particularly with respect to the person of Jesus.