How would our understanding of Jesus change if we abandoned our preconceptions and focussed on his words alone? How would this wisdom compare with that of ancient Israel and the early first-century church? Such questions pose serious difficulties. Everything in the early Christian gospels is either derived from historical memory, or is borrowed, or invented, argues Charles W. Hedrick. Of the many sayings attributed to Christ, historians can only agree on a few as having been spoken by him - andthose few are far from certain. In The Wisdom of Jesus, Hedrick overcomes these challenges, presenting a picture of Jesus as expressed through his own words. The Jesus that emerges is a lower-class man of the first century; a complex figure who cannot be considered religious in a traditional sense. Liberated from theological explanation and interpretation, his discourse is revealed as belonging to the secular world, and his concerns to be those of common life.
Unmasking Biblical Faiths aims to address many of the challenges to traditional Christian faith in the modern world. Since the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, human reason, formerly tethered by the constraints of organized religion, has been set free to explore the universe relatively unchallenged. The influence of the Bible, on the other hand, weakened due to the successes of modern historical criticism, is found to be inadequate for the task of enabling the faith “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), in that it cannot adequately respond to the many questions about religious faith that human reasoning raises for modern human beings. In a series of short but tightly reasoned essays, Charles Hedrick explores the confrontation between traditional Christian faith and aggressive human reason, a conflict that is facilitated by Western secular education.
In this splendid introduction to the elusive rhetorical device central to the New Testament picture of Jesus, Charles Hedrick explores the nature of the parable and its history of use. He asks basic questions such as, what is a parable? is Jesus really the author of the parables? and what does a parable mean? and then reviews a range of sources--from Aesop's fables to modern New Testament scholarship--to answer them. He also surveys the various ways the parables have been approached in literary criticism throughout history, giving specific examples of each method and delineating their strengths and weaknesses.
“It is so rare and refreshing to read a Roman history book which recognizes and celebrates the sheer difficulty of writing history” (The Times Literary Supplement). The ruling elite in ancient Rome sought to eradicate even the memory of their deceased opponents through a process now known as damnatio memoriae. These formal and traditional practices included removing the person’s name and image from public monuments and inscriptions, making it illegal to speak of him, and forbidding funeral observances and mourning. Paradoxically, however, while these practices dishonored the person's memory, they did not destroy it. Indeed, a later turn of events could restore the offender not only to public favor but also to re-inclusion in the public record. This book examines the process of purge and rehabilitation of memory in the person of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus. Charles Hedrick describes how Flavianus was condemned for participating in the rebellion against the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great—and then restored to the public record a generation later as members of the newly Christianized senatorial class sought to reconcile their pagan past and Christian present. By selectively remembering and forgetting the actions of Flavianus, Hedrick asserts, the Roman elite honored their ancestors while participating in profound social, cultural, and religious change. “One of the most interesting and original books about the Later Roman Empire that I have ever read.” —T. D. Barnes
Hedrick contends that parables do not teach moral and religious lessons; they are not, in whole or part, theological figures for the church. Rather, parables are realistic narrative fictions that like all effective fiction literature are designed to draw readers into story worlds where they make discoveries about themselves by finding their ideas challenged and subverted--or affirmed. The parables have endings but not final resolutions, because the endings raise new complications for careful readers, which require further resolution. The narrative contexts and interpretations supplied by the evangelists constitute an attempt by the early church to bring the secular narratives of Jesus under the control of the church's later religious perspectives. Each narrative represents a fragment of Jesus's secular vision of reality. Finding himself outside the mainstream of parables scholarship, both ecclesiastical and critical, Hedrick explored a literary approach to the parables in a series of essays that, among other things, set out the basic rationale for a literary approach to the parables of Jesus. These early essays form the central section of the book. They are published here in edited form along with unpublished critiques of a thoroughgoing literary approach and his response.
This volume presents critical editions of three of the most fragmentary codices in the Nag Hammadi Library. Their nine tractates are presented in an English translation with critically edited transcriptions of Coptic texts, including introductions and notes. A complete set of indices is provided for Coptic and Greek words, proper names, ancient texts and authors, and modern authors. The contents of these three ancient books reflect the rich diversity of the Library as a whole. They include a fragmentary (and apparently non-Christian) revelation descent narrative (Hypsiphrone); a non-Christian Sethian text reflecting heavy platonizing influence (Allogenes); Hellenistic Greek wisdom literature (Sentence of Sextus); a non-christian Sethian text, secondarily Christianized (Trimorphic Protennoia); Valentinian Gnosticism (A Valentinian Exposition); a Christian-Gnostic tractate with Valentinian affinities (The Interpretation of Knowledge). A Christian-Gnostic (perhaps Valentinian) homily on the gospel (the Gospel of Truth); the first page of On the Origin of the World (completely preserved in NHC II) and an identified fragmentary tractate with ethical content. There are also five Valentinian liturgical supplements appended to Allogenes. The publication of these religio-philosophical materials from Nag Hammadi provides the scholar and interested reader with critical editions of texts that help to fill in background and context of gnostic origins, and that shed light on the interaction among early Christianity and gnostic movements in antiquity.
Since the Renaissance of the 14th through 17th centuries, and particularly since the Enlightenment of the 18th century, the ancient creeds of faith have been under serious fire, and the struggle has not gone well for popular religion in America. The rapid advances made by the physical sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries and the corresponding reliance on scientific accomplishments in American life have been matched by the growing influence of reason in the way Americans think about religion. Except for pockets of resistance, these developments have negatively influenced the practical role of traditional religion in American life. These essays-published over a twenty-year period as newspaper editorials addressed to the general public-confront popular beliefs and morals with the challenge of human reason. At issue in this meeting of faith and reason is nothing less than the nature of religion in the twenty-first century. Will faith embrace reason to create a House where both dwell in harmony or will faith ignore the claims of reason and continue to live in an Enchanted Forest? Each essay, written in the practical language of the streets, attempts to dialogue with the general reader and gently provoke critical thinking on sensitive issues of belief.
This book introduces students to the chief disciplines, methods and sources employed in 'doing' ancient history, as opposed to 'reading' it. The book: Encourages readers to engage with historical sources, rather than to be passive recipients of historical tales Gives readers a sense of the nature of evidence and its use in the reconstruction of the past Helps them to read a historical narrative with more critical appreciation Encourages them to consider the differences between their own experience of ancient sources, and the use of these objects within the everyday life of ancient society A concise bibliographical essay at the end of each chapter refers to introductions, indices, research tools and interpretations, and explains scholarly jargon Written clearly, concisely and concretely, invoking ancient illustrations and modern parallels as appropriate.
Hedrick explores the tension, or collision, that occurs when studying the Jesus of faith with the critical eye of historical scholarship. He outlines the nature of historical inquiry, gives a brief history of how scholars have understood Jesus, and indentifies the essential issues confronting the reader of the New Testament Gospel accounts of Jesus: discrepancies, contradictions, and the differences as well as strong similarities among different writers.
This translation of the Gospel of Thomas represents a departure from the usual literal English of previous publications. It aims at providing a reader-friendly translation of the original Coptic language in contemporary idiomatic English, while remaining true to the complexities of the Coptic. The commentary seeks to clarify each saying as it likely would have been understood in the historical context of the Coptic language during the period of Thomas's popularity in Egypt. The sayings in Thomas in this period are no longer sayings of the Jewish man Jesus of Nazareth, but they have become sayings of a revelation bearer, the living Jesus, who announces a radical faith for a new age of the church. The historical matrix that best serves to inform the text is found in a continuation, albeit in a radical direction, of the traditional faiths represented in the earliest Christian literature.
The 'Apocalypse of Adam' was discovered among the papyri from the ancient gnostic library at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1946. It is a revelatory discourse that Adam delivers to his son Seth. This discourse is the fifth and final tractate in Nag Hammadi Codex V. The manuscript is now in the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo (codex inv. no. 10548). In Part I of this significant treatment, Hedrick analyzes the sources that lay behind this work, the redaction, and the main theological themes. In Part II, he provides the Coptic text, translation, and notes on the complete text, broken down by Source A, Source B, and the Redactor's additions.
Contending that Jesus narrative parables are more poetic than metaphoric, Hedrick argues that parables should be heard solely on their own terms. Hedrick s dissatisfaction with figurative and metaphorical approaches or those that argue for a particular meaning or a single interpretation diverges sharply from the modern consensus and breaks new ground in parable studies.
Contending that Jesus narrative parables are more poetic than metaphoric, Hedrick argues that parables should be heard solely on their own terms. Hedrick s dissatisfaction with figurative and metaphorical approaches or those that argue for a particular meaning or a single interpretation diverges sharply from the modern consensus and breaks new ground in parable studies.
The ruling elite in ancient Rome sought to eradicate even the memory of their deceased opponents through a process now known as damnatio memoriae. These formal and traditional practices included removing the person's name and image from public monuments and inscriptions, making it illegal to speak of him, and forbidding funeral observances and mourning. Paradoxically, however, while these practices dishonored the person's memory, they did not destroy it. Indeed, a later turn of events could restore the offender not only to public favor but also to re-inclusion in the public record. This book examines the process of purge and rehabilitation of memory in the person of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus (?-394). Charles Hedrick describes how Flavian was condemned for participating in the rebellion against the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great -- and then restored to the public record a generation later as members of the newly Christianized senatorial class sought to reconcile their pagan past and Christian present. By selectively remembering and forgetting the actions of Flavian, Hedrick argues, the Roman elite honored their ancestors while participating in profound social, cultural, and religious change. Hedrick's interpretation sheds new light on the transition from antiquity to the middle ages. It also illuminates political repression in the twentieth century with specific comparisons between ancient and modern practices of the eradication of memory.
Hedrick explores the tension, or collision, that occurs when studying the Jesus of faith with the critical eye of historical scholarship. He outlines the nature of historical inquiry, gives a brief history of how scholars have understood Jesus, and indentifies the essential issues confronting the reader of the New Testament Gospel accounts of Jesus: discrepancies, contradictions, and the differences as well as strong similarities among different writers.
Unmasking Biblical Faiths aims to address many of the challenges to traditional Christian faith in the modern world. Since the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment, human reason, formerly tethered by the constraints of organized religion, has been set free to explore the universe relatively unchallenged. The influence of the Bible, on the other hand, weakened due to the successes of modern historical criticism, is found to be inadequate for the task of enabling the faith "once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3), in that it cannot adequately respond to the many questions about religious faith that human reasoning raises for modern human beings. In a series of short but tightly reasoned essays, Charles Hedrick explores the confrontation between traditional Christian faith and aggressive human reason, a conflict that is facilitated by Western secular education.
Since The Renaissance of the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries, and particularly since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, the ancient creeds of faith have been under serious fire, and the struggle has not gone well for popular religion in America. The rapid advances made by the physical sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the corresponding reliance on scientific accomplishments in American life have been matched by the growing influence of reason in the way Americans think about religion. Except for pockets of resistance, these developments have negatively influenced the practical role of traditional religion in American life. These essaysùpublished over a twenty-year period as newspaper editorials addressed to the general publicùconfront popular beliefs and morals with the challenge of human reason. At issue in this meeting of faith and reason is nothing less than the nature of religion in the twenty-first century. Will faith embrace reason to create a House where both dwell in harmony or will faith ignore the claims of reason and continue to live in an Enchanted Forest? Each essay, written in the practical language of the streets, attempts to dialogue with the general reader and gently provoke critical thinking on sensitive issues of belief. "Charles Hedrick is a scholar who has come clean. From the 'buckle on the Bible Belt' comes this honest, intelligent, and creative reflection on the struggle between reason (and/or science) and personal faith. Charlie's reminder to take our personal absolute truths (house of faith) a little less seriously and enjoy the diversity of thought and experience (enchanted forest) is practical, powerful, and incredibly timely."-Glenna S. Jackson, Professor, Department of Religion and Philosophy at Otterbein College "House of Faith or Enchanted Forest? is a personal and lively journey along the path of faith and doubt. Charles Hedrick poses deep questions that for centuries have haunted philosophers, historians, and theologians alike. This book awakens and celebrates critical thinking yet remains warmly accessible and resolutely honest. Anyone who wishes to re-think life's great questions in light of the changing face of Christianity will find joy in reading this book. Here is an excellent resource for discussion groups, book clubs, and inquiring individuals."-David Galston, Director of the Eternal Spring learning Centre, Hamilton, Ontario "Charlie Hedrick asks a lot of questions in this provocative collection of short essays. One specific question that, perhaps, sums up the others, 'Can a critical thinker also be a person of traditional religious faith?' Spanning a wide range of topics, Hedrick offers readers challenging questions to ponder, rather than easy answers to swallow. Yet, by pondering such questions, careful readers will find themselves closer to honest answers than they were before they read this helpful book."-J. Bradley Chance, Professor and Chair, Department of Religion, William Jewell College
In this splendid introduction to the elusive rhetorical device central to the New Testament picture of Jesus, Charles Hedrick explores the nature of the parable and its history of use. He asks basic questions such as, what is a parable? is Jesus really the author of the parables? and what does a parable mean? and then reviews a range of sources--from Aesop's fables to modern New Testament scholarship--to answer them. He also surveys the various ways the parables have been approached in literary criticism throughout history, giving specific examples of each method and delineating their strengths and weaknesses.
Hedrick contends that parables do not teach moral and religious lessons; they are not, in whole or part, theological figures for the church. Rather, parables are realistic narrative fictions that like all effective fiction literature are designed to draw readers into story worlds where they make discoveries about themselves by finding their ideas challenged and subverted--or affirmed. The parables have endings but not final resolutions, because the endings raise new complications for careful readers, which require further resolution. The narrative contexts and interpretations supplied by the evangelists constitute an attempt by the early church to bring the secular narratives of Jesus under the control of the church's later religious perspectives. Each narrative represents a fragment of Jesus's secular vision of reality. Finding himself outside the mainstream of parables scholarship, both ecclesiastical and critical, Hedrick explored a literary approach to the parables in a series of essays that, among other things, set out the basic rationale for a literary approach to the parables of Jesus. These early essays form the central section of the book. They are published here in edited form along with unpublished critiques of a thoroughgoing literary approach and his response.
How would the image of Jesus appear if it were based only on sayings that scholars generally agreed originated with Jesus? And how would the wisdom of Jesus reflected in those few sayings compare to the wisdom of the sages of ancient Israel and the apostles of the early first-century church? To answer such questions historians face serious difficulties. Everything we know about Jesus comes from what later writers thought about him; none of the things they claimed he said came directly from him. "Everything in the early Christian gospels is either derived from historical memory, or is borrowed, or invented," Hedrick claims. Even those few sayings receiving near-universal agreement from historians as sayings of Jesus can only be affirmed as probable rather than certain. The aim of this study is to allow Jesus to speak for himself directly to readers, as nearly as possible in his own words without the theological explanations of his interpreters. The resulting image of Jesus that emerges is a complex picture of a first-century lower-class man who was not religious in a traditional sense. His discourse was the language of the secular world and addressed issues of common life.
Since the Renaissance of the 14th through 17th centuries, and particularly since the Enlightenment of the 18th century, the ancient creeds of faith have been under serious fire, and the struggle has not gone well for popular religion in America. The rapid advances made by the physical sciences in the 19th and 20th centuries and the corresponding reliance on scientific accomplishments in American life have been matched by the growing influence of reason in the way Americans think about religion. Except for pockets of resistance, these developments have negatively influenced the practical role of traditional religion in American life. These essays-published over a twenty-year period as newspaper editorials addressed to the general public-confront popular beliefs and morals with the challenge of human reason. At issue in this meeting of faith and reason is nothing less than the nature of religion in the twenty-first century. Will faith embrace reason to create a House where both dwell in harmony or will faith ignore the claims of reason and continue to live in an Enchanted Forest? Each essay, written in the practical language of the streets, attempts to dialogue with the general reader and gently provoke critical thinking on sensitive issues of belief. ""Charles Hedrick is a scholar who has come clean. From the ""buckle on the Bible Belt"" comes this honest, intelligent, and creative reflection on the struggle between reason (and/or science) and personal faith. Charlie's reminder to take our personal absolute truths (house of faith) a little less seriously and enjoy the diversity of thought and experience (enchanted forest) is practical, powerful, and incredibly timely."" --Glenna S. Jackson, Professor, Department of Religion and Philosophy at Otterbein College. ""House of Faith or Enchanted Forest? is a personal and lively journey along the path of faith and doubt. Charles Hendrick poses deep questions that for centuries have haunted philosophers, historians, and theologians alike. This book awakens and celebrates critical thinking yet remains warmly accessible and resolutely honest. Anyone who wishes to re-think life's great questions in light of the changing face of Christianity will find joy in reading this book. Here is an excellent resource for discussion groups, book clubs, and inquiring individuals."" --David Galston, Director of the Eternal Spring Learning Centre, Hamilton, Ontario ""Charlie Hedrick asks a lot of questions in this provocative collection of short essays. One specific question that, perhaps, sums up the others, 'Can a critical thinker also be a person of traditional religious faith?' Spanning a wide range of topics, Hedrick offers readers challenging questions to ponder, rather than easy answers to swallow. Yet, by pondering such questions, careful readers will find themselves closer to honest answers than they were before they read this helpful book."" --J. Bradley Chance, Professor and Chair, Department of Religion, William Jewell College Charles W. Hedrick is Distinguished Profesor of Religion Emeritus at Missouri State University. He is also the author of Parables as Poetic Fiction, When History and Faith Collide, and Many Things in Parables.
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