Heaven on Earth?

Hans Boersma holds the J. I. Packer Chair in Theology at Regent College, Canada, and is co-director (with Matthew Levering) of the Center for Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue. As well as this volume and a forthcoming publication on Gregory of Nyssa, he is the author of Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (2011), Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery (2009), and Violence, Hospitality, and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (2004). Prof Boersma is a member of the Langley Immanuel Christian Reformed Church. Matthew Levering is Professor of Theology at the University of Dayton, USA, where he is also director of the Center for Scriptural Exegesis, Philosophy, and Doctrine. Co-editor since 2003 of the theological journal Nova et Vetera, he has also recently joined the editorial team of the International Journal of Systematic Theology. Prof Levering has served as Chair of the Board of the Academy of Catholic Theology since 2007 and co-directs the Center for Catholic-Evangelical dialogue alongside Prof Boersma. His numerous books and publications include most recently The Feminine Genius of Catholic Theology (2012), Jesus and the Demise of Death (2012), and Predestination (2011). Forthcoming publications include volumes on St. Paul and Thomas Aquinas and on the theology of Augustine.

Introduction: Spiritual Interpretation and Realigned Temporality 1
HANS BOERSMA and MATTHEW LEVERING

Part I—Reading the Fathers 11

1 “In Many and Various Ways”: Towards A Theology of Theological Exegesis 13
BRIAN E. DALEY, SJ

2 “There’s Fire in That Rain”: On Reading the Letter and Reading Allegorically 33
LEWIS AYRES

3 Origen against History? Reconsidering the Critique of Allegory 53
PETER W. MARTENS

4 “This Is the Day Which the Lord Has Made”: Scripture, Manumission, and the Heavenly Future in Saint Gregory of Nyssa 75
HANS BOERSMA

Part II—Reading Scripture 91

5 Imperial Lover: The Unveiling of Jesus Christ in Revelation 93
PETER J. LEITHART

6 Translation and Transcendence: The Fragile Future of Spiritual Interpretation 109
DAVID LYLE JEFFREY

7 Readings on the Rock: Typological Exegesis in Contemporary Scholarship 129
MATTHEW LEVERING

Part III—Reading in Contemporary Context 155

8 The Self-Critique of the Historical-Critical Method: Cardinal Ratzinger’s Erasmus Lecture 157
MICHAEL MARIA WALDSTEIN

9 Profi ling Christ: The Psalms of Abandonment 173
FRANCESCA A. MURPHY

10 Reading the Book of the Church: Bonhoeffer’s Christological Hermeneutics 189
JENS ZIMMERMANN

11 “Ascending the Mountain, Singing the Rock: Biblical Interpretation Earthed, Typed, and Transfigured” 207
KEVIN J. VANHOOZER

Index 231