Humanity in God's Image

An Interdisciplinary Exploration
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-19-878498-2
Verlag: Oxford University Press(UK)

Buch, Englisch, 344 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 681 g

How can we, in our times, understand the biblical concept that human beings have been created in the image of an invisible God? This is a perennial but increasingly pressing question that lies at the heart of theological anthropology. Humanity in God's Image: An Interdisciplinary Exploration clarifies the meaning of this concept, traces different Jewish and Christian interpretations of being created in God's image, and reconsiders the significance of the imago Dei in a post-Holocaust context. As normative, counter-factual notions, human dignity and the imago Dei challenge us to see more.

Claudia Welz offers an interdisciplinary exploration of theological and ethical 'visions' of the invisible. By analysing poetry and art, Welz exemplifies human self-understanding in the interface between the visual and the linguistic. The content of the imago Dei cannot be defined apart from the image carrier: an embodied creature. Compared to verbal, visual, and mental images, how does this creature as a 'living image' refer to God--like a metaphor, a mimetic mirror, or an elusive trace? Combining hermeneutical and phenomenological perspectives with philosophy of religion and philosophy of language, semiotics, art history, and literary studies, Welz regards the imago Dei as a complex sign that is at once iconic, indexical, and symbolical--pointing beyond itself.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Welz, Claudia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Neues Testament: Exegese, Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction: 'Imago Dei' and the Dialectics of In-Visibility

- Part I: CREATION AND CREATIVITY

- 1: Dialectics of Visibility and Invisibility: The 'Imago Dei' as a Complex Sign Pointing beyond Itself

- 2: Subjectivity of Seeing: The 'Imago Dei' as Self-Interpreting Image

- Part II: REVEALMENT AND CONCEALMENT

- 3: Resonating and Reflecting the Divine: The 'Imago Dei' as God-Revealing Humanity in Jewish Theology, Philosophy, and Poetry

- 4: Divine-Human Dis-Similarity: Freedom, Sin, and Relational Ontology in Reformation Theology

- Part III: REORIENTATION AND REDEMPTION

- 5: Likeness to God in Love and Suffering: Imagination, Identification, and Religious Reorientation

- 6: Glory from Elsewhere: The Human Being as Embodied Image of God

- Part IV: ETHICS WITH AN ESCHATOLOGICAL PROVISO

- 7: 'Imago Dei' and Crimes against Humanity: Biblical and Post-Holocaust Perspectives on an Ethics of In-Visibility

- 8: 'Imago Dei' and Human Dignity: Reciprocal Regard and an Unfulfilled Demand

- Conclusion: Vision and Speech

- Bibliography

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Claudia Welz is Professor with special responsibilities in Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at the University of Copenhagen.