Bøger af Walter Brueggemann

The Christian gospel, says Brueggemann, is too easily preached and heard. Too often technical reason and excessive religious certitude reduce the gospel to coercive, debilitating pietisms that mask the text's meaning and freeze the hearers heart. With skill and imagination, Brueggemann demonstrates how the preacher can engage in daring speech-differently voiced and therefore differently heard. This speech, as suggested by the Bible itself, is "poetic" speech, enabling the preacher to forge communion in the midst of alienation, bring healing out of guilt, and empower the hearer for "missional imagination." As an alternative to theological/homiletical discourse that is moralistic, pietistic or scholastic, Brueggemann proposes preaching that is artistic, poetic, and dramatic. The basis for the 1989 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale Divinity School, Finally Comes the Poet is a unique and transforming guide for powerful preaching.

In this study of Solomon and his place in the larger consciousness of Israel, Walter Brueggemann considers what Old Testament narratives regarding David's heir reveal about the aspirations and ideals of the ancient Israelite people. He notes that an irony permeates the Solomon tradition and invites critique of accepted beliefs.

This text introduces the book of Psalms and provides an exposition of each psalm with attention to genre, liturgical connections, societal issues and the psalm's place in the book of Psalms as a whole. The treatments of the psalms feature a close look at particular issues raised by the text and the encounters between the world of the psalm and the world of contemporary readers. The exposition of each psalm provides a reader's guide to the text in conversation with relevant theological issues.

In this volume, Walter Brueggemann focuses on Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40-55), believed to be written by a second exilic poet, and Third Isaiah (Isaiah 56-66), a third group of texts that rearticulate Isaianic theology in yet another faith situation. Brueggemann discusses both the distinctiveness of the texts and their canonical relatedness.Books...

The necessary context of prophetic preaching, Walter Brueggemann argues, is a contestation between narratives: the dominant narrative of our time, which promoting self-sufficiency at the national level (through militarism) and the personal (through consumerism), and the countervailing narrative of a world claimed by a God who is gracious, uncompromisingand real. In previous work Brueggemann has pointed us again and again to the indispensability of imagination. Here he writes for those who bear responsibility for regular proclamation in communities of faith, describing the discipline of a prophetic imagination that is unflinchingly realistic and unwaveringly candid.

In the last several years, Walter Brueggemann's writingshave directly addressed the situation of Christiancommunities in today's globalized context, with itsconsumerist lifestyles, vast inequalities, and near-imperialexercises of power. His insights, forged in rugged encounterswith the texts of the Old Testament, are sharp, painful, andindispensable. In the People of Israel Brueggemann finds amodel of an alternative community - anchored in YHWH, ever exploring new possibilities, and prophetically bentagainst empire.Part I: The Word Redescribing the WorldPart II: The Word Redefining the PossiblePart III: The Word Shaping a Community of Discipleship

"No scholar of this generation has had a greater fire in his bones for communicating the word of God than Walter Brueggemann. These essays on Jeremiah exemplify his insistence that criticism should lead to interpretation, and remind us again why prophets like Jeremiah still matter in the 21st century." - John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament, Yale "Like Fire in the Bones is a gift to the churches and to anyone interested in prophetic literature with its harsh rhetoric, blazing visions, and demanding yet merciful God. Jeremiah may have had fire in his bones, but Brueggemann sets fires with his pen. He shows how Jeremiah speaks into the abyss of historical catastrophe with speech that matches experience. He underlines the disputatious political character of theological speech. He reiterates Jeremiah's call to covenant loyalty even in the face of religious and government forces that suppress and silence words of life. He illuminates Jeremiah's bare-boned hope for a world in the thrall of empire and social amnesia. If ever there was need for imaginative rereading of Jeremiah and of the texts of common life, it is now. At this, Brueggemann is a master." - Kathleen M. O'Connor, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary "Jeremiah, the longest book in the Bible, is neglected much too often by preacher and teacher alike. That neglect is due, in significant part, to the prophet's often-sharp words that strike too close to home, in his own generation and in ours. It is telling that the prophet Jeremiah, the focus of these essays that span much of Walter Brueggemann's prophetic ministry, has been in his head and heart for such a long time. Again and again, Brueggemann's own words have mirrored Jeremiah to us, and the times in which we presently live could profit from hearing them again." - Terence E. Fretheim, Elva B. Lovell Professor of Old Testament, Luther Seminary

Against the easy assurance of a too-enculturated religion, Walter Brueggemann refocuses the preaching task around the decentering, destabilizing, always risky Word that confronts us in Scripture if we have the courage to hear.

"To pursue the matter of "revelation in context," I will address an exceedingly difficult text in the Old Testament, Joshua 11. The reason for taking up this text is to deal with the often asked and troublesome question: What shall we do with all the violence and bloody war that is done in the Old Testament in the name of Yahweh? The question reflects a sense that these texts of violence are at least an embarrassment, are morally repulsive, and are theologically problematic in the Bible, not because they are violent, but because this is violence either in the name of or at the hand of Yahweh." -from chapter 2

The land was one of the most vibrant symbols for the people of ancient Israel. In the land-gift, promise, and challenge-was found the physical source of Israel''s fertility and life, and a place for the gathering of the hopes of the covenant people. In this careful treatment, Walter Brueggemann follows the development of his theme through the major blocks of Israel''s traditions. The book provides a point of entrance both to the theology of the Old Testament and to aspects of the New Testament-even as it illuminates crucial issues of the contemporary scene. In this fully revised version, Brueggemann provides new insights, as well as updating the discussion, notes, and bibliography.

The present study focuses on the theology of the Book of Jeremiah. That theology revolves around themes familiar from Israel's covenantal faith, especially the sovereignty of YHWH expressed in judgment and promise. The outcome of this theological nexus of context, person, and tradition is a book that moves into the abyss and out of the abyss in unexpected ways. It does so, in part, by asserting that God continues to be generatively and disturbingly operative in the affairs of the world, up to and including our contemporary abysses (such as 9/11). The God attested in the Book of Jeremiah invites its readers into and through any and all such dislocations to new futures that combine divine agency and human inventiveness rooted in faithfulness.

This scholarly study of the Psalms retains its rigor while focusing particularly on the pastoral use of the Psalms, looking at how they may function as voices of faith in the actual life of the believing community.