Theology of John Calvin


Book Description

This historically significant volume collects Karl Barth's lectures on John Calvin, delivered at the University of Göttingen in 1922. The book opens with an illuminating sketch of medieval theology, an appreciation of Luther's breakthrough, and a comparative study of the roles of Zwingli and Calvin. The main body of the work consists of an increasingly sympathetic, and at times amusing, account of Calvin's life up to his recall to Geneva. In the process, Barth examines and evaluates the early theological writings of Calvin, especially the first edition of the Institutes.




The Jews and the Reformation


Book Description

Judaism has always been of great significance to Christianity but this relationship has also been marked by complexity and ambivalence. The emergence of new Protestant confessions in the Reformation had significant consequences for how Jews were viewed and treated. In this wide-ranging account, Kenneth Austin examines Christian attitudes toward Jews, the Hebrew language, and Jewish learning, arguing that they have much to tell us about the Reformation and its priorities—and have important implications for how we think about religious pluralism today.




John Calvin in Context


Book Description

John Calvin in Context offers a comprehensive overview of Calvin's world. Including essays from social, cultural, feminist, and intellectual historians, each specially commissioned for this volume, the book considers the various early modern contexts in which Calvin worked and wrote. It captures his concerns for Northern humanism, his deep involvement in the politics of Geneva, his relationships with contemporaries, and the polemic necessities of responding to developments in Rome and other Protestant sects, notably Lutheran and Anabaptist. The volume also explores Calvin's tasks as a pastor and doctor of the church, who was constantly explicating the text of scripture and applying it to the context of sixteenth-century Geneva, as well as the reception of his role in the Reformation and beyond. Demonstrating the complexity of the world in which Calvin lived, John Calvin in Context serves as an essential research tool for scholars and students of early modern Europe.




Reconsidering John Calvin


Book Description

Places Calvin in conversation with theologians such as Barth and Kierkegaard and reconsiders his understanding of judgment and love.




John Calvin's Exegesis of the Old Testament


Book Description

For anyone who wishes to understand the historical tensions that existed in Calvin's time with regard to the interpretation of scripture, this book will be of great value. For those who wish to understand Calvin's actual method of exegetical reasoning, a largely unmined source of information that reveals what he most valued as an exegete, this book will be invaluable.




Calvin and Luther: The Continuing Relationship


Book Description

The reforms begun by Luther and Calvin became two of the largest and most influential movements to arise in the sixteenth century, but frequently, these two movements are seen and defined as polar opposites – one's theology is Reformed or Lutheran, one is a member of a Reformed or Lutheran congregation. Historically, these were two very separate movements – but more remains to be understood that can best be analyzed in the context of the other.Just as surely as the historical question of the boundaries between Calvin and Luther, or Lutheranism and Calvinism must be answered with a resounding yes, the ongoing doctrinal questions offer a different picture. In the more systematic doctrinal articles, an argument is forwarded that the broad confessional continuity between Luther and Calvin on the soteriological theme of union with Christ offers still-unexplored avenues to both deeper understandings of soteriology. Through such articles, we begin to see the possibility of a rapprochement between Calvin and Luther as sources, though not as historical figures. But that insight allows the conversation to extend, and bear far greater fruit.Contributors are, J.T. Billings, Ch. Helmer , H.P. Jürgens, S.C. Karant-Nunn, R. Kolb, Th.F. Latini, G.S. Pak, J. Watt, T.J. Wengert, P. Westermeyer, and D.M. Whitford.




John Calvin and the Jews


Book Description

In order to evaluate the impact of Calvin's teachings on modern Reformed theology regarding the Jews, examines not only Calvin's criticism of Jews (sometimes couched in very harsh words), but his theology in general which may shed light on his stance on this issue. Calvin's writings show that he saw the Old and the New Testaments as an essential unity, he believed that God did not reject His people, that the Jewish Law was still valid, and that salvation was still open to the Jews. His criticism of the Jews concerned the Jews' strict reliance on their physical descent from Abraham, their dependence upon works of the Law for salvation, and their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. The Reformed Church adopted Calvin's conception of the single covenant, but have not overcome his supersessionism. Calls for the formulation of a comprehensive doctrine on the Jews which does justice to the Reformed tradition and avoids the pitfalls of anti-Judaism.




The Judaizing Calvin


Book Description

By exploring how Martin Luther, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin interpreted a set of eight messianic psalms (Psalms 2, 8, 16, 22, 45, 72, 110, 188), Sujin Pak elucidates key debates about Christological exegesis during the era of the Protestant reformation. More particularly, Pak examines the exegeses of Luther, Bucer, and Calvin in order to (a) reveal their particular theological emphases and reading strategies, (b) identify their debates over the use of Jewish exegesis and the factors leading to charges of 'judaizing' leveled against Calvin, and (c) demonstrate how Psalms reading and the accusation of judaizing serve distinctive purposes of confessional identity formation. In this way, she portrays the beginnings of those distinctive trends that separated Lutheran and Reformed exegetical principles.




Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500-1660)


Book Description

The Reformation transformed Christian Hebraism from the pursuit of a few into an academic discipline. This book explains that transformation by focusing on how authors, printers, booksellers, and censors created a public discussion of Hebrew and Jewish texts.




From Judaism to Calvinism


Book Description

This book provides the first full-length study of the influential biblical scholar Immanuel Tremellius (1510-1580) since the late nineteenth century. It traces his conversion from Judaism, through Catholicism, to Protestantism, where he established a reputation as the leading scholar of Hebraic studies in Europe. Teaching at leading Reformed academies and universities, and publishing new Latin translations of both the Old and New Testaments, Tremellius's life not only reveals much about Reformation scholarship, but also about its attitudes to Jews and Jewish studies in an age of rapidly shifting theological doctrines.




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