Category: Biblical thought

No comments

Day Six

  By Biblical thought, Feminism, Philosophy

In Christian traditions, and most Jewish ones as well, the story of the Garden of Eden is the story of humankind’s estrangement from God. Jews and Christians differ about how we are to understand that estrangement. Many Christians see the fall as the source of original sin. Jews, on the other hand, typically reject the notion of original sin. Yet the dominant interpretation of Genesis 2 is that, in eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve are rejecting the authority of God. As a result God punishes them, and us. The most troubling circumstances of human life flow from the action of Adam and Eve. And only a return to God, in this world or the next, can free us from our predicament. Against this traditional interpretation of the text I want to pose another, radically different and feminist reading, one that draws on… Continue reading

No comments

Christianity in the Western Tradition

  By Academic, Biblical thought, Christianity, Conference Papers, Modern Political and Moral Thought, Philosophy, Published Paper

“Christianity in the Western Tradition,” in Don Thompson, Darrel Colson, and J. Scott Lee, Universality and History: Foundations of Core(University Press of America, 2002) An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Core Texts and Courses in April 2000. The link is to a slightly expanded version of the published article. This paper examines the place of Christianity in the Western tradition. It is a dissent from the idea—found in a wide variety of mid-century works—of a great tradition of political and moral thought that begins in Athens and Jerusalem and is rejected by the founders of modernity. On this view, Ancient Greek and Biblical thought share the aspiration to ennoble human beings. Modernity, on the other, builds on low but presumably more solid foundations. In this paper I wish to put forward a different story. My claim is that, though modernity fundamentally rejects the… Continue reading