Christian History articles from November 2003

Christian History archives from November 2003

Did you know? Interesting and unusual facts about the church's first Bible interpreters.
November 1, 2003... Great grandfather of medieval culture? Clement of Alexandria (ca. 160-215) began the monumental project that would culminate in the Middle Ages--to place all of Western culture on a biblical foundation. Robert Wilken calculates there are...

The founding fathers we never knew: and two announcements.(From The Editor)(Editorial)
November 1, 2003... Don't know much about history... "So croons the popular song. And today, among the least-known figures of history are the early church fathers. But not only are such people as Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Basil the Great the...

The habits of highly effective Bible readers: what we can learn from the church fathers that will enrich our own Bible study. A conversation with Christopher A. Hall.(Introduction)
November 1, 2003... In recent years, more and more evangelical Protestants have been looking at the early church fathers--that group of Christian teachers stretching from just after the apostles through approximately the first five centuries of the church--to see...

Why the reformers read the fathers.
November 1, 2003... The Reformers taught "Sola Scriptura, which meant every person became their own Bible interpreter, right? Wrong. We asked noted Reformation scholar David Steinmetz of Duke Divinity School about this. In this excerpt from our interview, he...

The first battle for the Bible: a century after Christ's death, a literalist and a spiritualizer forced the church to choose how it would read the Scriptures it inherited from the Jews.
November 1, 2003... By the year 150, the Christian church exhibited many features that would mark it for centuries: Christians baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; they celebrated the Lord's Supper weekly; they were governed by a bishop,...

Midwife of the Christian bible: Irenaeus identified the books of the New Testament, then showed the church how they fit with the Old.
November 1, 2003... Irenaeus was a living link to the apostles. Although he became bishop of Lyons, in France, he was originally from the East. He was probably born in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) around A.D. 130-140. As a youth he had seen and heard Polycarp of...

Origen: friend or foe? He has been called the father of Christian biblical exegesis, the first systematic theologian ... and a heretic. How should we assess his legacy today?
November 1, 2003... Few figures in church history have stimulated the level of debate and controversy that surrounds Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185-ca. 254). To some, he was a brilliant intellectual as well as a passionately committed disciple of Christ, the most...

Allegory at work: by turns bizarre and insightful, Origen's allegorical forays remain fascinating reading today.
November 1, 2003... Examples of Origen's allegorical Scripture interpretation abound in his writings, particularly in his commentaries and homilies. For instance, in his 27th homily on the book of Numbers, he describes growth in the spiritual life based on the 42...

Too racy for bible study: Origen could not believe the Song of Songs was a hymn to erotic love. So what did it mean?
November 1, 2003... Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine, your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out.... How beautiful are you, my love, how very beautiful.... Your hair is like a flock of...

Traditions in bible reading.(The Christian History Timeline)
November 1, 2003... The Apologists 100-165 Justin Martyr, born a pagan at Naples, is the first to use Scripture methodically in his writings. Late 2nd century Theophilus of Antioch is the first to quote primarily from the New Testament as...

Opponents of allegory: the scholars at Antioch rejected allegory in favor of history. But their interpretive method led some into heresy.
November 1, 2003... There are people who take great pains to twist the sense of the divine scriptures," wrote the fourth-century biblical scholar, Theodore of Mopsuestia, a prominent voice of the exegetical school centered at Antioch, "and make everything written...

Scripture saturation: to achieve holiness, believed the early monks, you must soak in the "moral sense" of the Word.
November 1, 2003... A little-known monk living in the Egyptian desert at the end of the fourth century provided one of the most durable interpretive keys in the history of Bible study. The monk, named Nesteros, proposed thai all of Holy Scripture is to be...

Origen's monastic legacy.
November 1, 2003... Origen did not invent the idea that one must pursue purity of heart in order to understand the deeper spiritual meanings of Scripture. But his teaching ministry at Alexandria in the early third century gave this idea a deep and longstanding...

Three wise men from the East: the "Cappadocian Fathers" brought the best gift of all: a powerful scriptural defense of the Trinity and Christ's divinity against the Arian heretics.(The Gallery)
November 1, 2003... Basil of Caesarea ("the Great") Pugnacious saint and theologian of the Spirit Mention the "church fathers" to a Western Christian, and Basil the Great is not usually the first name to come to mind. Yet even for the Roman Catholic Church,...

Early voices on Bible study: the Church Fathers faced two big questions: "what is Scripture?" and "How should we read it?".
November 1, 2003... WHY TWO BOOKS? "All the apostles taught that there were indeed two testaments among the two peoples: but that it was one and the same God who appointed both for the advantage of those people... who were to believe in God.... [T]he first...

Classical ear-training: what the church fathers heard in Homer and Virgil tuned them to the harmonies of Scripture.
November 1, 2003... Blessed are the meek," Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, "for they shall inherit the earth." When Chrysostom, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Eusebius heard Jesus speaking of meekness, they immediately thought of Moses. Theodoret cites...

Augustine's key: the West's foremost theologian offered a single principle by which even the unlearned could unlock Scripture's meaning.
November 1, 2003... Few people today would doubt that Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was the greatest writer of the early Christian church. Certainly, he has left us more books than anyone else. For centuries, most of the Western Church took its understanding of...

Augustine vs. Literalism: why he was so fond of "spiritual" scripture interpretation.
November 1, 2003... There are passages in the Bible--obvious figures of speech, metaphors--that modern readers would not even think to take literally. But during the period of the early church, some of these passages still caused confusion among the uninitiated,...

Reading over the Fathers' shoulders: here are several good guides to early exegesis, along with some of the best editions of the early interpreters' own writings.(Resources)
November 1, 2003... Getting to know the Fathers Christopher A. Hall's Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers (InterVarsity, 1998) is the best short introduction to the subject for modern Protestants. Hall understands the questions and reservations this...