Biblical Issues/ Xtn Sprtlty

Catalog description

Taught by JST. In recent decades some exegetes and theologians have begun to explore how a Hermeneutic of Memory is operative in biblical texts, especially by attending to the post-Auschwitz interpretive task for Scripture. The political theological discourse of Johann Baptist Metz and Dorothee Soelle can open participants to various experiences of suffering in this past century, for their theological enterprise shifted as they explored biblical texts and motifs through the lens of the sufferer of millions during the Nazi genocide of the Jews. One might describe this turn as the self-implicating dimension of their academic research: once the interpreters' lives are intertwined with the memory of unspeakable suffering, the task of interpretation becomes more holistic as it involves their response to life in their study. Some in the field of Spirituality would claim that the self-implicating nature of biblical study is what constitutes the biblical basis of either Jewish or Christian spirituality. Some helpful examples of this hermeneutic turn from interpretation of Psalms, Job, and Lamentations. [Faculty Consent required]