New Encyclical

Spe Salvi
Pope Benedict XVI’s new Encyclical has been released. A quick skimming reveals references to Aquinas, de Lubac, Adorno and Horkheimer, Kant and Marx.

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Historical Jesus and Theology (3)

To finish up this series of posts on the quest for the Historical Jesus and its relation to theology I’d like to point to another argument in favour of the position which holds that the quest is essential is the danger of ideological appropriation of Jesus. If theology ignores the historical Jesus it leaves the [...]

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Free Journal Access

Just a heads up for those who may be interested in reading scholarly theological articles but aren’t at University and have no access to online databases, or maybe even those at University who don’t have access to Sage Publications: if you sign up now you will have free access to all their journals until the [...]

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The Historical Jesus and Theology (2)

The ‘idealist’ position denying the quest for the Historical Jesus any theological relevance was adopted by the dialectical theologians of the 20th century such as Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann for whom any attempt to ground faith in historical certainty was theologically impermissible on the basis of the Sola Fides of the reformers. There is [...]

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History and Theology: Is the Historical Jesus essential to Christian Theology?

Historical-critical research on the Gospels has, in the eyes of many, rendered an uncritical acceptance of the Gospel texts as completely historical accounts documenting the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, impossible. It has long been acknowledged that the Gospels (our principle source for information on the historical Jesus) are not objectively neutral accounts [...]

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