Revelation and Story

Revelation and Story explores the relationship between the theology of revelation and the theology of story or narrative theology. Mediating between German systematic theology's concern for revelation and current Anglo-Saxon interest in narrative theology and centrality of 'story', this book illuminates both traditions. Exploring 'revelation' and 'story' from both theological and philosophical perspectives, this book connects these concepts with questions of the authority of religious and literary texts, particularly the Bible. Believing that God's revelation precedes and forestalls all human perception of God, all speech about God, and every attempt to experience anything about God or know Him, leading scholars from both Anglo-Saxon and German traditions are brought together to present a diverse range of conceptions relating to how God's revelation occurs, resulting in a new theory of the relation of revelation and story which transcends the traditional cultural divide. Stanley Hauerwas contributes the Foreword. Revelation and Story offers a valuable new contribution to systematic theology, hermeneutics, and the study of the authority of Scripture, as well as presenting insights into important overlaps between British and German theology. This book will be of particular interest to scholars and students of philosophy and theology, and to students of literature and literary theory with an interest in hermeneutics.

Contents: Introduction; 'Scriptural faithfulness' is not a 'Scripture principle', Gerhard Sauter; Story and possibility: Reflections on the last scenes of the fourth gospel and Shakespeare's The Tempest, Paul S. Fiddes; Disclosing human possibilities: Revelation and Biblical stories, John Barton; Reading the Bible theologically, Ernstpeter Maurer; Revelation as Gestalt, Rainer Fischer; Allegoria: Reading as a spiritual exercise, Graham Ward; 'Revelation' and 'Story' in Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic, Michael Wolter; Does the gospel story demand and discourage talk of revelation?, Robert Morgan; The productive vagueness of an untranslatable relationship, Caroline Schröder; Bibliography; Index.