Heaven on Earth?

This ecumenical collection brings together eleven leading Catholic and evangelical theologians in a discussion of the benefits - and potential drawbacks - of today's burgeoning corpus of theological interpretation. The authors address the question of whether this rapid growth of commentary and analysis deepens the Christian community's understanding of scriptural history or threatens to distance us from that history and to produce an ahistorical faith. Much rests on how historical reading of Scripture can hope to enter into Scripture's own understanding of history as providentially governed and as already participating, despite appearances, in Christ's eschatological victory. The essays provide diverse theological and exegetical perspectives on the relationship between earthly time and its heavenly source and goal, between this-worldly narratives and spiritual realities. The varied backgrounds of the authors, and their differing areas of expertise, make this collection a truly wide-ranging theological debate about the kinds of scriptural exegesis that Christians today ought to be pursuing. The retrieval of patristic voices is here shown to be a notable dimension not only of Catholic theology but also of evangelical theology. Yet important differences remain regarding how far spiritual interpretation can proceed without losing touch with Scripture's original contexts and purposes. Covering topics that range from contemporary typological exegesis to the Christological hermeneutics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the anthology expresses a shared concern to identify the work of God in the fabric of the temporal world.