Over the course of his multivolume Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth not only cites thousands of Scripture texts but also offers extensive exegetical discussion of numerous passages. In this book twelve leading theologians and biblical scholars examine Barth's exegesis of particular passages in the Gospels. How does Barth's practice of theological exegesis play out in his reading of the Gospels? What are the fundamental features of Barth's interpretation of Gospel texts, and to what extent do they enliven theology, biblical studies, and ethics today? Reading the Gospels with Karl Barth explores answers to such questions and offers fresh stimulus for further study and discussion. CONTRIBUTORS Richard Bauckham Kendall Cox Beverly Roberts Gaventa Eric Gregory Willie James Jennings Paul Dafydd Jones Bruce L. McCormack Daniel L. Migliore Jürgen Moltmann Paul T. Nimmo Fleming Rutledge Shannon Nicole Smythe

This volume is a critical and constructive analysis of the sexually differentiated self in Karl Barth's Church Dogmatic. It secures in his Christocentric pattern of human agency an untapped resource for unsettling and reimagining the heteropatriarchal structure of human fellowship at the heart of his theological anthropology. Moving through Barth's doctrines of revelation, creation, theological anthropology, and special ethics, Faye Bodley-Dangelo locates the human agent in his broader project aimed at re-habilitating the subject of modern protestant theology. She argues the human actor comes into view as the recipient of Christ's redemptive activity, which redirects it out of self-aggrandizing isolation and into relationships of dependency, responsiveness, and ethical responsibility to multiple sites of divine and creaturely alterity. The book debates that Barth's model of human agency cannot on its own terms sustain his version of female subordination nor his repudiation of same-sex relationships. Rather, it contains ethically-oriented, critical and reflective mechanisms that resist the sexist heterosexist dimension of his theological anthropology and lend themselves to an anti-essentialist performative account of gender.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) is generally acknowledged to be the most important European Protestant theologian of the twentieth century, a figure whose importance for Christian thought compares with that of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. Author of the Epistle to the Romans, the multi-volume Church Dogmatics, and a wide range of other works - theological, exegetical, historical, political, pastoral, and homiletic - Barth has had significant and perduring influence on the contemporary study of theology and on the life of contemporary churches. In the last few decades, his work has been at the centre of some of the most important interpretative, critical, and constructive developments in in the fields of Christian theology, philosophy of religion, and religious studies. The Oxford Handbook of Karl Barth is the most expansive guide to Barth's work published to date. Comprising over forty original chapters, each of which is written by an expert in the field, the Handbook provides rich analysis of Barth's life and context, advances penetrating interpretations of the key elements of his thought, and opens and charts new paths for critical and constructive reflection. In the process, it seeks to illuminate the complex and challenging world of Barth's theology, to engage with it from multiple perspectives, and to communicate something of the joyful nature of theology as Barth conceived it. It will serve as an indispensable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, academics, and general readers for years to come.

The Reverend Professor Dorothy A. Lee FAHA is well-known as a New Testament scholar not only in Australia but around the world. An Anglican priest, her ministry, particularly as a preacher and retreat director, is highly regarded and highly sought after, not only in her home city of Melbourne, but in many parts of the country. This Festschrift volume honors her contributions and ministry on the occasion of her seventieth birthday. An interdisciplinary collection of twenty-one essays, it offers two biographical contributions, several essays on New Testament themes, essays on women, feminism, and the church, and cross-disciplinary essays focused on the biblical text. Contributors to the volume come from Australian theological education centers and Australian churches.

Today’s biblical scholars and dogmaticians are giving a significant amount of attention to the topic of theological exegesis. A resource turned to for guidance and insight in this discussion is the history of interpretation, and Karl Barth’s voice registers loudly as a helpful model for engaging Scripture and its subject matter. Most readers of Barth’s theological exegesis encounter him on the level of his New Testament exegesis. This is understandable from several different vantage points. Unfortunately, Barth’s theological exegesis of the Old Testament has not received the attention it deserves. This book seeks to fill this lacuna as it encounters Barth’s theological exegesis of Isaiah in the Church Dogmatics. From the Church’s inception, Isaiah has been understood as Christian Scripture. In the Church Dogmatics we find Barth reading Isaiah in multi-functional and multi-layered ways as he seeks to hear Isaiah as a living witness to God’s triune revelation of himself in Jesus Christ.

Did Christ assume a fallen human nature? "What is not assumed is not healed." So goes the Chalcedonian maxim articulated by Gregory of Nazianzus regarding the nature and extent of Christ's work in assuming a human nature. But what is the nature of that assumption? If Christ is to stand in solidarity with us, must he have assumed not merely a human nature, but specifically a fallen human nature? In Sinless Flesh: A Critique of Karl Barth's Fallen Christ, Rafael Bello argues against the assertion made by Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, and those who follow them that Christ assumed a fallen nature. Through retrieval of patristic, medieval, and Reformed orthodox theologians, Bello argues that a proper understanding of human nature, trinitarian inseparable operations, and the habitual grace-grace of union distinction leads to the conclusion that the assertion that Christ assumed a fallen human nature is at odds with faithful theological and historical understandings of the incarnation. Readers interested in theological retrieval for issues in contemporary theology will find a faithful model and way forward for a thorny issue in modern dogmatics.

Gospel writing always follows Gospel reading, a complex literary act of reception that interprets the theological significance of Jesus. This volume seek to demonstrate the intricate dynamics of this controversial figure's theological and textual reception through foundational essays on specific texts and themes.

This textbook on how to read the Gospels well can stand on its own as a guide to reading this New Testament genre as Scripture. It is also ideally suited to serve as a supplemental text to more conventional textbooks that discuss each Gospel systematically. Most textbooks tend to introduce students to historical-critical concerns but may be less adequate for showing how the Gospel narratives, read as Scripture within the canonical framework of the entire New Testament and the whole Bible, yield material for theological reflection and moral edification. Pennington neither dismisses nor duplicates the results of current historical-critical work on the Gospels as historical sources. Rather, he offers critically aware and hermeneutically intelligent instruction in reading the Gospels in order to hear their witness to Christ in a way that supports Christian application and proclamation.

Endorsements: "Karl Barth and Hans Frei are close to the center of contemporary hermeneutical debate. David Demson's illuminating study offers an authoritative account of their respective ways of reading Scripture, arguing that, for all its fruitfulness, Frei's work lacks a theology of inspiration such as Barth provides. Scrupulous and nuanced in its handling of the texts, this book is a perceptive contribution to the literature of both Frei and Barth. It is also a place to begin exploring key theological issues concerning biblical interpretation, theory of interpretation, and Christology." --John Webster, Oxford University "The whole of Christian discourse is contained in the tiny, glittering questions that Demson so marvelously brings to light. His work is the work of a hermeneutical master in the service of other hermeneutical masters--Hans Frei and Karl Barth. The result is a brilliant restatement of Frei on 'the identity of Jesus Christ'--amplified and qualified by astute attention to Barth. An outstanding contribution to the ecclesial reading of Holy Scripture." --George Hunsinger, Center of Theological Inquiry "Taking a narrow focus--a single difference in the interpretation of Scripture by two twentieth-century theologians--Demson has succeeded in opening up a wide theme. Here is a fascinating account of how the reading of the Bible remains a living challenge for contemporary Christians." --Kenneth Hamilton, University of Winnipeg "A careful description and able comparison of two significant theologians' expositions of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry, passion, and resurrection. Demson, who is impartial but not neutral in his stance, provides helpful synthetic insight into how Barth and Frei each treat a broad theological theme and, at the same time, gives readers constructive proposals for explicating New Testament texts. This book is a welcome contribution to all for whom attending to the Bible and doing theology are inseparable." --H. Martin Ruscheidt, Atlantic School of Theology Author Biography: David E. Demson is professor of systematic theology at Emmanuel College, University of Toronto, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Karl Barth Society of North America.

Karl Barth was well-known for his criticism of German nationalism as a corrupting influence on the German protestant churches in the Nazi era. Defining and recognising nationhood as distinct from the state is an important though underappreciated task in Barth's theology. It flows out of his deep concern for the capacity for nationalist dogma - that every nation must have its own state - to promote warfare. The problem motivated him to make his famous break with German liberal protestant theology. In this book, Carys Moseley traces how Barth reconceived nationhood in the light of a lifelong interest in the exegesis and preaching of the Pentecost narrative in Acts 2. She shows how his responsibilities as a pastor of the Swiss Reformed Church required preaching on this text as part of the church calendar, and thus how his defence of the inclusion of the filioque clause in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed stemmed from his ministry, homiletics and implicit missiology. The concern to deny that nations exist primordially in creation was a crucial reason for Barth's dissent from his contemporaries over the orders of creation, and that his polemic against 'natural theology' was largely driven by rejection of the German liberal idea that the rise and fall of nations is part of a cycle of nature which simply reflect divine action. Against this conceit, Barth advanced his famous doctrine of the election of Israel as part of the election of the community of the people of God. This is the way into understanding the division of the world into nations, and the divine recognition of all nations as communities wherein people are meant to seek God.