Future Hope and Present Reality
Volume I: Eschatology and Transformation in the Hebrew Bible
by Andrew Chester
This book is the first of a two-volume work with the overall title Future Hope and Present Reality. These volumes had their origin in the Speaker’s Lectures that Andrew Chester gave in Oxford; their main focus is central themes in biblical eschatology, and especially the apparent contradictions between what is hoped for in the future and what is experienced in the present: the stark discrepancy, that is, between the world as it is and the world as it should be. In this first volume, as the subtitle Eschatology and Transformation in the Hebrew Bible indicates, the author is concerned with the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament; the second will be on the New Testament). He deals, successively, with central eschatological themes and the deep tensions they involve: divine threats of an absolute end (to human life and to the world itself), and divine promises of blessing and transformation, along with the theological questions inevitably raised by these – both in themselves and in relation to each other; the whole phenomenon of prophecy, and the problems it involves – not least, whether it can be taken seriously, in face of the contradictions and failures it manifests. He discusses the sheer discrepancy between ideal and reality in traditions relating to kingship, along with the tensions inherent in the emergence of messianic hope; death, as representing the end of any relationship with God, along with hope that goes beyond death – in relation both to the individual and also the nation; and, finally, visions of a transformed and paradisal world, and whether these can bear any relation to reality. It is argued that the Hebrew Bible can be seen to offer genuine grounds for hope, but that these can have any cogency only if the problems involved are really engaged with.
Andrew Chester, Born 1948; 1966-69 studied Semitic Languages at Oxford; 1970-72 Theology at Cambridge; 1973-76 PhD studies at Cambridge; since 1994 Fellow, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge; since 2008 University Reader in Early Jewish and Christian Thought, University of Cambridge.
- By (author) Andrew Chester
Other Titles in this Series
Das Alte Testament als christliche Bibel in orthodoxer und westlicher Sicht
Zweite europäische orthodox-westliche Exegetenkonferenz im Rilakloster vom 8.-15. September 2001
Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus
A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence
Volume 247
Eschatologie – Eschatology
The Sixth Durham-Tubingen Research Symposium: Eschatology in Old Testament, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Tubingen, September, 2009)
Volume 272
The History of Religions School Today
Essays on the New Testament and Related Ancient Mediterranean Texts
Volume 340
Das Endgericht bei Paulus
Framesemantische und exegetische Studien zur paulinischen Eschatologie und Soterologie
Volume 371
Antike und Urchristentum
Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie in ihren Kontexten und Rezeptionen
Volume 436
Covenant – Concepts of Berit, Diatheke, and Testamentum
Proceedings of the Conference at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas, November 2019
Volume 506
Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen
Beiträge zu außerkanonischen Jesusüberlieferungen aus verschiedenen Sprach- und Kulturtraditionen
From the Lost Teaching of Polycarp
Identifying Irenaeus' Apostolic Presbyter and the Author of Ad Diognetum
Volume 186
Schriftgelehrte Prophetie
Der eschatologische Teufelsfall in Apc Joh 12 und seine Bedeutung für das Verständnis der Johannesoffenbarung
Von Texten zu Geschichten
Aufsätze zur Konzeption und Geschichte der Wissenschaft vom Neuen Testament
Witwen, Recht und Gerechtigkeit
Diskurse über Witwen im frühen Christentum als Rezeptionsorte prophetischer und weisheitlicher Kulturkritik
Messiah and Exaltation
Jewish Messianic and Visionary Traditions and New Testament Christology
Volume 207
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