Religious Studies

Arie W. Zwiep traces the history of biblical interpretation from antiquity to the present. He shows how text, reader, and context interact to shape meaning and give rise to a plurality of interpretations, and how changing historical and cultural contexts continue to reshape the understanding of Scripture.

How can we change our minds about the standards we use to change our minds? Leading philosophers, historians, and scholars of religion take up this paradox, engaging critically with the theory of rational self-criticism set out in The View from Within: testing, instantiating, extending, and challenging it.

Given the criticism of compassion expressed as far back as antiquity, its positive assessment and relevance to theology, Christology, and ethics in the Gospel of Luke is surprising. Elisa M. Klein situates this in the context of philosophical and early Jewish conceptions of emotion and highlights the significance of disgust in the Gospel.

The fundamental intuition of hermeneutical theology is that faith is understood as understanding - but what happens when non-understanding sets in? In this study of Fuchs, Ebeling, and Jüngel, Simon Haug examines their understanding of understanding and identifies non-understanding as a central dimension of understanding and faith.