Thy Word Is Truth: Barth on Scripture
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Over the past two decades, studies on Karl Barth have become increasingly technical. The ironic result is that although Barth wrote chiefly for preachers, scholars have become the primary gatekeepers to his rich theological thought.
The collection of essays in Thy Word Is Truth introduces Karl Barth with both clarity and depth, providing pastors and other serious readers with a valuable overview of Barth’s views on Scripture. George Hunsinger, a recognized expert on Barth, and eight other scholars cover such topics as Barth’s belief that Scripture is both reliable and inspired, his typological exegesis, his ideas about time and eternity, and more. Reading this book will whet the reader’s appetite to engage further with Barth himself.
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- Explains how Karl Barth saw Scripture as both reliable and inspired
- Discusses Barth’s interpretation of Scripture
- Shows how Barth reads the Sermon on the Mount as possessing a hidden center in Christ
- Measures several recent theologians against Barth on the question of Scripture and “religion”
- Offers three brief excerpts from Barth
- Orientation
- Scripture and Tradition in the Theology of Karl Barth
- The Doctrine of Inspiration and the Reliability of Scripture
- Postcritical Scriptural Interpretation: Rudolf Smend on Karl Barth
- Scripture as Realistic Narrative: Karl Barth as Critic of Historical Criticism
- Exemplification
- “A Type of the One to Come”: Leviticus 14 and 16 in Barth’s Church Dogmatics
- “Living Righteousness”: Karl Barth and the Sermon on the Mount
- The Same Only Different: Karl Barth’s Interpretation of Hebrews 13:8
- Barth’s Lectures on the Gospel of John
- Application
- “Thy Word is Truth”: The Role of Faith in Reading Scripture Theologically with Karl Barth
- The Heart of the Matter: Karl Barth’s Christological Exegesis
Top Highlights
“ the authority of the confession—and now of all ‘tradition’—can only be a relative authority” (Page 17)
“Tradition,’ Barth goes on to assert in italics, ‘is not revelation” (Page 9)
“the Bible’s message to us is finally self-authenticating” (Page 6)
“These critics find Barth dangerous because he ‘sounds’ orthodox, but really isn’t. He seems to be saying many orthodox things, they argue, but because he denies verbal inspiration and infallibility to the biblical text, he has really sold orthodoxy down the river.” (Page 5)
“The way we must characterize the message of the gospel is with the words ‘Jesus is Victor’ (a phrase adopted from the Blumhardts)—victor over sin, over death, over all that could possibly threaten us.” (Page 4)
- Robert McAfee Brown
- Hans W. Frei
- Kathryn Greene-McCreight
- A. Katherine Grieb
- George Hunsinger
- Paul Dafydd Jones
- Paul D. Molnar
- Katherine Sonderegger
- John Webster
In this exciting volume George Hunsinger (our finest contemporary interpreter of our greatest contemporary theologian, Karl Barth) gathers a distinguished group of scholars to assess and interpret Barth as a reader of Scripture. Each of these essays, in different ways, offers fresh insights into the theology of Karl Barth and into Scripture as a living witness to the truth who is Jesus Christ.
—William H. Willimon, bishop, North Alabama Conference, United Methodist Church
George Hunsinger is Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and recipient of the 2010 Karl Barth Award from the Union of Evangelical Churches in Germany. He is the author of The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let Us Keep the Feast and Torture Is a Moral Issue: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and People of Conscience Speak Out.