Thursday, July 28, 2005

Research paper

I have settled on a framework for my paper. It will be entitled Reading Scripture Afresh: Story and the Christian Faith. Heres the abstract:

ABSTRACT: In this paper I offer an explorative suggestion to the question of what should we use the bible for and how do we do so? I propose that the question needs to be asked afresh due to the short falls and problems with contemporary “grass-root” level readings and uses of the Bible that begin with the assumption of “biblical authority”. I argue that the nature of the Christian faith and the ‘shape’ of the Bible provide the way forward. The Biblical Christian faith is rooted in a grand-narrative, the story of God and the world from creation to new creation, which the scriptures tell. We are to make this grand-narrative the controlling-story within our worldview, and from our place within the story, creatively appropriate the scriptures according to their literary forms.
The title betrays several aspects of this thesis. Firstly, reading scripture afresh suggests that here I propose a new method or purpose for reading Scripture. Secondly, the presence of Christian faith in the sub-title shows that this fresh reading is a reading for the Christian, from within the Christian faith, and that being positioned within the Christian tradition is central to the method of this fresh reading. Thirdly, story highlights the importance of the category within this new approach.

Im happy with this and now begin the task of tranforming all my notes into the first draft, doing some more research when needed.

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