Ad Litteram
How Augustine, Calvin, and Barth Read the «Plain Sense» of Genesis 1-3
Published on 1. January 1999
Book
Hardback
XII, 274 pages
978-0-8204-3992-1 (ISBN)
Description
One of the most complex problems in Christian interpretation of the Bible is the question of what constitutes a «plain sense» reading of scripture. This study breaks fresh ground by examining understandings of the plain sense of scripture along a trajectory represented by Augustine, John Calvin, and Karl Barth. Analyzing their readings of Genesis 1-3, Professor Greene-McCreight focuses on Augustine's De Genesi ad Litteram, libri XII, Calvin's Commentary on the First Book of Moses, and Barth's Church Dogmatics 3.1. The results of this investigation urge an ecumenically significant understanding of the plain sense of scripture: within this theological trajectory, reading according to the plain sense involves a negotiation between the constraints of verbal sense and the Rule of Faith.
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Person
The Author: K. E. Greene-McCreight teaches in the Religious Studies Department at Connecticut College. She received her M.Div. and S.T.M. from Yale Divinity School and her Ph.D. in Theology from Yale University, where she was a Franke Fellow in Humanities. The author of several articles on Christian biblical interpretation and theological use of scripture, Professor Greene-McCreight is writing a book on the role of the biblical narrative in feminist theology, thanks to a grant from the Pew Evangelical Scholars Trust.