Engaging some of the most recent and more urgent issues in the philosophy of religion today, in this lively book Richard Kearney proposes that instead of thinking of God as "actual," God might best be thought of as the possibility of the ...

Study one: Between phenomenology and hermeneutics -- Study two: Between imagination and language -- Study three: Between myth and tradition -- Study four: Between ideology and utopia -- Study five: Between good and evil -- Study six: Between poetics and ethics -- Dialogue 1: Myth as the bearer of possible worlds -- Dialogue 2: The creativity of language -- Dialogue 3: Universality and the power of difference -- Dialogue 4: Imagination, testimony, and trust -- Dialogue 5: On life stories.

Being 'biblical' : contexts and starting points -- Jesus of Nazareth : great moral teacher or friend of sinners? -- Paul : follower or founder? -- Mark : suffering for the kingdom -- Matthew : being truly righteous -- Luke-Acts : a universal concern -- John : teaching the truth in love -- Apartheid : an ethical and generic challenge to reading the New Testament.

This book presents the first assessment of one of the most rapidly expanding fields of research: the history of sexuality. From the early efforts of historians to work out a model for sexual history, to the extraordinary impact of French philosopher Michel Foucault, to the vigorous debates about essentialism and social constructionism, to the emergence of contemporary debates about historicism, queer theory, embodiment, gender and cultural history - we now have vast and diverse historical scholarship on sex and sexuality. 'Histories (...) of Sexuality' highlights the key historical moments and issues: pederasty and cultures of male passivity in ancient Greece and Rome; the impact of early Christianity and ideals of renunciation on the sexual cultures of late antiquity; the sustained existence of homosexual cultures in medieval and renaissance Europe; the "invention" of homosexuality and heterosexuality in eighteenth century Europe and America; the truth behind Victorian sexual repression; the work of reformers and scientists such as Havelock Ellis, Marie Stopes, Stella Browne, Margaret Sanger, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. (shrink)

Dan Stiver presents the implications of Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutical philosophy for a postmodern theology by providing a comprehensive interpretation of Ricoeur and then applying Ricoeur's hermeneutical theory to biblical interpretation and theology. Stiver situates Ricoeur's contributions in the Yale-Chicago debate and shows how Ricoeur's textual theory provides a real alternative to George Lindbeck (on the one hand) and deconstruction (on the other).