John Barton (theologian)

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John Barton (born June 17, 1948 in London ) is Professor of the Interpretation of Scripture at Oriel College , Oxford . His research focuses on the prophets of the Old Testament , the Bible canon , the interpretation of the Bible , Old Testament theology and Biblical ethics . He is married and has a daughter.

Academic functions and memberships

Barton graduated from Keble College, Oxford University with a Master of Arts , Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Letters (Litterarum doctor) degrees .

He became a lecturer in the Old Testament at Oxford University in 1974. Since 1991 he has been there “Oriel & Laing professor of the interpretation of Holy Scripture”. At the same time he became a "Fellow" at Oriel College. His predecessors as "Oriel Professor" were Ernest Nicholson (1979–1990) and before that James Barr (1976–1978).

Barton has been a member ("Fellow") of the British Academy since 2007 and an external member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences since 2008 . The University of Bonn , whose theological faculty has worked together with that of Oxford since 1977, awarded him an honorary doctorate in theology in 1998 . He is co-editor of the monograph series supplements to the journal for Old Testament scholarship .

Church offices

Barton is a priest ("Reverend") of the Church of England . He was ordained in 1973. As a representative of the clergy at Oxford University, he was part of the general synod of this church for several years, from 2000 to 2005 and from 2009 to 2010 . He works in Abingdon Parish , south of Oxford.

Since 2011 he has been president of the liberal “Modern Church”. This non-profit organization was founded by members of the Church of England in 1898. In the spirit of ecclesiastical modernism at the time, the Modern Church advocated new scientific approaches such as Darwinism . Today she advocates the controversial possibility in the Anglican Church of electing female bishops . She publishes the theological magazine Modern Believing , of which Barton is a member of the editorial board.

Theological research

Old Testament prophets as a specialty

The Old Testament prophets became Barton's specialty. He researched Amos , Isaiah , Joel and Obadja as well as the effects of the books of the prophets in post-exilic Israel . In Germany, too, Barton was used to portray these prophets.

The Bible in the Church as a Research Subject

In the course of his theological work, Barton turned more and more to fundamental questions about the Bible : On the one hand, he was concerned with the ecclesiastical recognition of certain books that were jointly granted authority as the Bible (canon), and on the other hand with the interpretation of this Bible in the life of the Church and of believers, especially the application of biblical texts to ethical questions.

Barton dealt with certain theological drafts of German Old Testament scholars, for example with Gerhard von Rad and Rainer Albertz .

In his attempt to trace the development of the Bible canon in the Old Church , Barton referred primarily to the classical studies of Adolf von Harnack and Theodor Zahn , to Albert C. Sundberg's thesis of a late dating of the canon, and to the quantitative study by Franz Stuhlhofer .

Barton has been used to represent the subject of "canon" in popular works such as The Access Bible and Christianity: The Complete Guide . He has contributed to Harper's Biblical Commentary , The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, and A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation on interpretation .

For A History of the Bible he received the Duff Cooper Prize 2019.

Works

Barton published partly in German, but mainly in English. Several books appeared in parallel in a British and an American edition. Books written or edited by him have been translated into German, Danish, Spanish, Czech and Chinese. In total he wrote about 20 books, edited about ten books and published about 90 articles in magazines or anthologies.

Monographs

to the Old Testament:

  • Reading the Old Testament. Method in Biblical Study . Darton, Longman & Todd, London and Westminster Press, Philadelphia 1984 (2nd, expanded edition 1996).
  • Ethics and the Old Testament . SCM Press, London 1998 (Czech 2006).
  • The Old Testament: Canon, Literature and Theology . Ashgate, Aldershot 2007 (collected essays).

on the Bible, its canon and its interpretation:

  • People of the Book? The Authority of the Bible in Christianity . SPCK, London and Westminster / John Knox Press, Philadelphia 1988 (2nd expanded edition 1993, 3rd expanded edition 2011).
  • with Robert Morgan: Biblical Interpretation (Oxford Bible) . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1988.
  • Love Unknown. Meditations on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus . SPCK, London and Westminster / John Knox Press, Philadelphia 1990 (Danish 1992).
  • What is the Bible? . SPCK, London 1991 (2nd expanded edition 1997, 3rd edition 2009; Spanish 2004).
  • The Spirit and the Letter. Studies in the Biblical Canon . SPCK, London 1997; American edition: Holy Writings, Sacred Text. The canon in early christianity . Westminster / John Knox Press, Louisville 1998.
  • Living Belief: Being Christian, Being Human . Continuum, London 2005.
  • The Nature of Biblical Criticism . Westminster John Knox, Louisville (Kentucky) 2007.
  • A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths , Allen Lane, London 2019.

Publication (selection)

  • The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1998 (Spanish 2001, Chinese 2009).
  • with Gerhard Sauter : Revelation and stories . Peter Lang, Frankfurt / Main 2000 (English: Revelation and Story. Narrative Theology and the Centrality of Story , 2000).
  • with John Muddiman: The Oxford Bible Commentary . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001.
  • The Biblical World . Routledge, London 2002, 2 volumes.
  • with Christopher Rowland: Apocalyptic in History and Tradition . Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield 2003.
  • with Michael Wolter : The Unity of Scripture and the Diversity of the Canon (= Beihefte zur ZNW ; 118), Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2003.

Article (some examples)

  • Understanding Old Testament Ethics . In: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 9 (1978), pp. 44-64.
  • Old Testament Theology and Approaches to Old Testament Ethics . In: Beginning Old Testament Study , ed. JW Rogerson. SPCK, London 1983, pp. 90-130.
  • The Significance of a Fixed Canon of the Hebrew Bible . In Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. The History of its Interpretation , ed. M. Sæbø. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen + Zurich 1996, Vol. 1, pp. 67-83.
  • What is a book? Modern Exegesis and the Literary Conventions of Ancient Israel . In: Intertextuality in Ugarit and Israel (= Oudtestamentische Studiën; 40); ed. JC de Moor. EJ Brill, Leiden 1998, pp. 1-14.
  • The Messiah in Old Testament Theology . In King and Messiah in Israel and the Ancient Near East , ed. J. Day. Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield 1998, pp. 365-379.
  • Foreword to the reprint by James Barr: The Scope and Authority of the Bible . SCM, London 2002, pp. Vii-xi.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Siegbert Riecker in his review of Barton: The Old Testament. Canon, Literature and Theology , 2007, in: Yearbook for Evangelical Theology 23, 2009, p. 260.
  2. ↑ British Academy ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.britac.ac.uk
  3. ^ Norwegian Academy : Members listed.
  4. ↑ Collaboration Oxford + Bonn ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.europaeum.org
  5. ↑ Modern Church ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.modernchurch.org.uk
  6. ↑ See his books Amos's Oracles against the Nations , Cambridge 1980, and The Theology of the Book of Amos , Cambridge 2012.
  7. ↑ See his comment Isaiah 1-39 (Old Testament Guides) , Sheffield 1995 (German: Isaiah - Prophet in Jerusalem: An introduction to topics in Isaiah 1-39 , Göttingen 2006).
  8. ↑ See his commentary on Joel and Obadiah. A Commentary , Louisville (Kentucky) 2001.
  9. ↑ See his book Oracles of God. Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile , London 1986 (2nd edition 2007).
  10. ↑ For example for an issue of the journal Evangelische Theologie from 1987: Barton wrote the essay about attempts to justify the prophetic announcement of calamity in the Old Testament (pp. 427-435). For the Evangelical Church Lexicon he wrote the article Prophets, Prophetie, 2: Old Testament (Göttingen 1993, Sp. 1339–45).
  11. ^ John Barton: Gerhard von Rad on the World-View of Early Israel . In: Journal of Theological Studies , Vol. 35 (1984), pp. 301-323.
  12. ↑ John Barton: Old Testament theology according to Albertz? In: History of religion or theology of the Old Testament = Yearbook for Biblical Theology , Vol. 10, (1995), pp. 25–34.
  13. ^ John Barton: The Spirit and the Letter , 1997.
  14. ^ Gail R. O'Day, David Peterson (ed.), Oxford University Press, Oxford 1999, pp. 26-40: The Nature and Formation of the Canon
  15. ^ John Bowden (ed.), Continuum Publishing, London 2005, pp. 197-199: Canon .
  16. ↑ JL Mays (ed.) In Verlag Harper & Row, New York 1988, pp. 2-13: Reading and Interpreting the Bible .
  17. ^ AE McGrath (ed.) In Verlag Blackwell, Oxford 1993, pp. 35-41: Biblical Criticism and Interpretation I: Old Testament .
  18. ↑ RJ Coggins, JL Houlden (ed.) In the publishers SCM Press, London + Trinity Press International, Philadelphia 1990, pp. 69-72: Authority of Scripture , 101-105: Canon , 197f .: Eisegesis , 497f .: Oracle , 556–559: Prophets and Prophecy , and 719–722: Verbal Inspiration .
personal data
SURNAME Barton, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Anglican theologian
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH London