Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Setting the scene: a modern debate about faith and history
- 2 Relating scripture and systematic theology: some preliminary issues
- 3 Ways of approaching the Book of Revelation
- 4 The spatial dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 5 The temporal dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 6 Pannenberg, Moltmann, and the Book of Revelation
- 7 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index of passages cited
- Index of modern authors
- Index of subjects
7 - Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Setting the scene: a modern debate about faith and history
- 2 Relating scripture and systematic theology: some preliminary issues
- 3 Ways of approaching the Book of Revelation
- 4 The spatial dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 5 The temporal dimension of the Book of Revelation
- 6 Pannenberg, Moltmann, and the Book of Revelation
- 7 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index of passages cited
- Index of modern authors
- Index of subjects
Summary
The aim of this study has been to examine the extent to which the reading of one New Testament text – the Book of Revelation – can be used to support or question the contemporary theologies of history proposed by Wolfhart Pannenberg and Jürgen Moltmann.
I began in chapter 1 by setting the contributions of Pannenberg and Moltmann in their context, comparing and contrasting their proposals with other influential ideas about the relationship between faith and history. In chapter 2 I proceeded to explore some of the methodological issues which arise from the consideration of the relationship between theology and scripture. I argued against attempts to see the relationship between exegesis and systematics as a ‘two-stage’ process, in which the results of biblical interpretation are first determined, then transmitted wholesale to an entirely separate discipline, which seeks to apply them to contemporary questions. Rather, I suggested that it was both legitimate and important for the two disciplines to interrelate. Similarly, I argued for the relationship between scripture and theological formulation to be seen as dialectical. Scripture is a starting point for the generation of conceptual frameworks in theology. These frameworks then need to be reassessed continually, to determine their adequacy as elaborations of scripture. At the same time, new light may be shed on scripture itself by reading it through the lenses provided by such conceptual frameworks.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- God and History in the Book of RevelationNew Testament Studies in Dialogue with Pannenberg and Moltmann, pp. 201 - 207Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003