Author: Gregory A. Boyd
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830898441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 456
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Book Description
Where does evil come from? If there is a sovereign creator God, as Christian faith holds, is this God ultimately responsible for evil? Does God's sovereignty mean that God causes each instance of sin and suffering? How do Satan, his demons and hell fit into God's providential oversight of all creation and history? How does God interact with human intention and action? If people act freely, does God know in particular every human decision before the choice is made? In this important book Gregory A. Boyd mounts a thorough response to these ages-old questions, which remain both crucial and contentious, both practical and complex. In this work Boyd defends his scripturally grounded trinitarian warfare theodicy (presented in God at War) with rigorous philosophical reflection and insights from human experience and scientific discovery. Critiquing the classical Calvinist solution to the problem of evil, he advocates an alternative understanding of the sovereignty of the trinitarian God and of the reality of Satan that sheds light on our fallen human condition. While all may not agree with Boyd's conclusions, Satan and the Problem of Evil promises to advance the church's discussion of these critical issues.
Author: Archie T. Wright
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506484654
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
Satan's transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no more than an "accuser" testing members of the human community, Satan, along with his demons, is presented by Jewish apocalyptic texts and the New Testament as a main source of evil in the world. In Satan and the Problem of Evil, noted scholar Archie Wright explores this dynamic in both its historical and theological trajectories. Interactions with Zoroastrianism led Jewish and Christian writers of the Second Temple Period to separate God from responsibility for evil in the world. This led to the emergence of a heavenly being that is responsible for evil and suffering: Satan. Satan and the Problem of Evil charts the development of Satan traditions and the problem of evil from the Hebrew Bible and its various translations in the Greek Septuagint to Jewish literature from the Second Temple Period to the Greek New Testament. It concludes by examining the writings of the early church theologians, from the late first century through the fourth century CE. Wright argues that these latter writers present a shift in the understanding of Satan to one that is significantly different from the Jewish Scriptures, extrabiblical Jewish literature, and the New Testament. Accessibly written and comprehensive in scope, Satan and the Problem of Evil offers researchers, scholars, students, and even the general reader a definitive treatment of a perennial question.
Author: Elaine Pagels
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0679731180
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
From the National Book Award-winning and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels comes a dramatic interpretation of Satan and his role on the Christian tradition. "Arresting...brilliant...this book illuminates the angels with which we must wrestle to come to the truth of our bedeviling spritual problems." —The Boston Globe With magisterial learning and the elan of a born storyteller, Pagels turns Satan’s story into an audacious exploration of Christianity’s shadow side, in which the gospel of love gives way to irrational hatreds that continue to haunt Christians and non-Christians alike.
Author: Miguel A. De La Torre
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451414811
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
For centuries the figure of Satan has incarnated absolute evil. Existing alongside more intellectualist interpretations of evil, Satan has figured largely in Christian practices, devotions, popular notions of the afterlife, and fears of retribution in the beyond. Satan remains an influential reality today in many Christian traditions and in popular culture. But how should Satan be understood today? "The Quest for the Historical Satan excavates cultural, historical, religious, and morally constructed productions of evil within Christianity, from myth and legend to the complex ways people conjure the embodiment of evil and harm. De La Torre and Hernßndez are engaging sleuths as they carefully examine Satan's conception and his presence in modernity and through the ages. The wrestle with the spiritual notions of Good and Evil and justice and injustice.-Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan Professor of Theology and Women's Studies Shaw University Divinity School
Author: Jeffrey Burton Russell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801494093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
This lively and learned book traces the history of the concept of evil and its personification as the Devil from ancient times to the period of the New Testament and across cultures and civilizations.
Author: Gregory A. Boyd
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830898301
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 419
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Book Description
In this bold and compelling work, Gregory Boyd undertakes to reframe the central issues of Christian theodicy. By Boyd's estimate, theologians still draw too heavily on Augustine's response to the problem of evil, attributing pain and suffering to the mysterious "good" purposes of God. Accordingly, modern Christians are inclined not to expect evil and so are baffled but resigned when it occurs. New Testament writers, on the other hand, were inclined to expect evil and fight against it. Modern Christians attempt to intellectually understand evil, whereas New Testament writers grappled with overcoming evil. Through a close and sophisticated reading of both Old and New Testaments, Boyd argues that Satan has been in an age-long (but not eternal) battle against God, and that this conflict "is a major dimension of the ultimate canvas against which everything within the biblical narrative, from creation to the eschaton, is to be painted and therefore understood." No less edifying than it is provocative, God at War will reward the careful attention of scholars, pastors, students and educated laypersons alike.
Author: Adam Kotsko
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503600211
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
“Kotsko goes beyond the biography of an icon to a provocative investigation of the devil’s many lives and effects in cultural and political ideologies.” —Laurel C. Schneider, author of Beyond Monotheism The most enduring challenge to traditional monotheism is the problem of evil, which attempts to reconcile three incompatible propositions: God is all-good, God is all-powerful, and evil happens. The Prince of This World traces the story of one of the most influential attempts to square this circle: the offloading of responsibility for evil onto one of God’s rebellious creatures. In this striking reexamination, the devil’s story is bitterly ironic, full of tragic reversals. He emerges as a theological symbol who helps oppressed communities cope with the trauma of unjust persecution, torture, and death at the hands of political authorities and eventually becomes a vehicle to justify oppression at the hands of Christian rulers. And he evolves alongside the biblical God, who at first presents himself as the liberator of the oppressed but ends up a cruel ruler who delights in the infliction of suffering on his friends and enemies alike. In other words, this is the story of how God becomes the devil—a devil who remains with us in our ostensibly secular age. “This diabolically gripping genealogy offers a stunning parable of western politics religious and secular. It tracks as has never been done before the dramatic shifts of the relation between God and the Devil—conflict, rivalry, game of mirrors, fusion. With the ironic wisdom of a postmodern Beatrice, Kotsko guides us through the sequence of hells that leads to our own.” —Catherine Keller, author of On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process
Author: Andrew Delbanco
Publisher: Noonday Press
ISBN: 0374524866
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Author: Gregory A. Boyd
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 9780830823949
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
Wrestling with the question, Is God to blame?, Gregory A. Boyd offers a hopeful picture of a sovereign God who is relentlessly opposed to evil, who knows our sufferings and who can be trusted to bring us through them to renewed life.
Author: Archie T. Wright
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
ISBN: 9783161510311
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
How do we account for the explosion of demonic activity in the New Testament? Archie T. Wright examines the trajectory of the origin of evil spirits in early Jewish literature. His work traces the development of the concept of evil spirits from the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 6) through post-biblical Jewish literature. "I would in fact recommend this book, not because of the answers it gives, but the questions it raises." -- Philip R. Davies in Journal of Semitic Studies 55 (2010) "This work is marked by several strengths. First, Wright shows an impressive command of the primary and secondary literature. Second, this writer appreciates Wright's tendency to express cautious conclusions regarding historical and source-critical matters. These qualities are especially helpful in a work dealing with the reception history of a given text. Third, Wright has an extremely helpful discussion of the identity of the nephilim of Gen. 6:4 (80-83)." -- Mark D. Owens in Faith & Mission 24 (2007), pp. 68-70
