Reading Scripture with Paul Ricoeur

Reviews / Votes

Ironically, the Bible has become a stumbling block, to the Jew and the Greek and just about everyone else. It's used as a cudgel when it should be a text of healing and reconciliation. So now, more than ever, we need the hermeneutical vision of Paul Ricoeur, for he reminded us that the eschatological horizon of scripture implicates us, embraces us, and, most importantly, helps us to understand ourselves. In the capable hands of Edelheit and Moore and their collaborators, readers of this book will be rewarded with a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the text that Ricoeur loved above all others. -- Tony Jones, author of "Did God Kill Jesus? Searching for Love in History's Most Famous Execution" For readers new to Ricoeur, these essays offer a way into his thought and contributions to philosophy, ethics, and biblical interpretation. To the already familiar, they pose challenges to dig deeper and apply Ricoeur's insights to texts that impact common assumptions regarding gender, politics, and biblical authority. In the spirit of Ricoeur, they invite readers to find and see themselves among other creatures inside the world of biblical texts, which are both created by a community and in turn perpetually recreate that community. Finally, they summon readers of every generation to engage in genuine dialogue from which they dare never walk away. -- Fred Niedner, Valparaiso University This brilliant compilation of essays by leading literary, philosophical, and theological lights showcases the fecundity of Paul Ricoeur's interpretations of the Bible. Neither a biblical literalist nor a secular fundamentalist, Ricoeur was a philosopher who sought to listen to the summons of the scriptural texts. This cutting-edge collection--both comprehensive in its philosophical range and focused in its attention to particular biblical stories--will delight readers who have learned, as Ricoeur famously put it, that 'it is by interpreting that we can hear again.' -- Mark Wallace, Swarthmore College As the essays in this outstanding collection aptly demonstrate, Paul Ricoeur was a profound biblical scholar in whose work there's not a clear distinction between philosopher and scriptural exegete. In bringing together this group of leading philosophers, theologians, and biblical scholars, Edelheit and Moore have given us an excellent collection of essays that invite the reader into a critical dialogue with the scriptural text that shaped and informed Ricoeur's philosophical imagination. With Ricoeur as guide, these essays reveal a surplus of meaning in scripture with the power to draw new life out of old texts and, through the kind of open and pluralistic dialogue modeled in the essays themselves, to challenge and transform both the communities in which the scriptural text is sacred and the broader world. I cannot recommend this volume highly enough. -- Kevin W. Sharpe, St. Cloud State University "Reading Scripture with Paul Ricoeur is a horn of plenty for all who wish to learn more about the biblical hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur. It is a valuable companion to this theologically and existentially intriguing part of Ricoeur's oeuvre. The essays in the book 'give rise to thought'; they trigger us to reflect upon how the biblical texts are able to nourish our understanding of the world and of ourselves. The texts in Reading Scripture with Paul Ricoeur attest to the extensive width and depth of the topics that the hermeneutics of Ricoeur invites us to explore. Among these topics are questions regarding personal identity, narrative, memory, human fragility and culpability, imagination and creativity, and translation. The distinguished scholars contributing to this anthology stay true to the heritage of Ricoeur: they are not simply repeating his thoughts but instead are applying and deepening his hermeneutical reflections in creative and critical dialogues both with representatives of other traditions and with the challenges of the current world." -- Bjoern Vikstroem, Abo Academy University