Tradition and imagination : revelation and change /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Brown, David, 1948 July 1-
Imprint:Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.
Description:1 online resource : illustrations
Language:English
Subject:
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11264599
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Varying Form of Title:Tradition & imagination revelation & change
ISBN:9780191520693
0191520691
1281970913
9781281970916
9781435623231
1435623231
0191600431
9780191600432
9780199275915
0199275912
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
English.
Print version record.
Summary:Revelation is seen as a gift from God given only once. David Brown challenges this idea by examining the effect cultural development has on religious belief, narrative, and art, and exploring the nature of the relationship between historical and imaginative truth. This book argues that post-canonical traditions have functioned as imaginative enrichments of religious belief and can also at times lay claim to the title of revelation. - ;Tradition and revelation are often seen as opposites: tradition is viewed as secondary and reactionary in relation to revelation which is a one-off gift from God. Drawing on examples from Christian history, Judaism, Islam, and the classical world this book challenges these definitions and presents a controversial examination of the effect history and cultural development has on religious belief: its narratives and art. David Brown pays close attention to the nature of the relationship between historical and imaginative truth, and focuses on the way stories from the Bible have not stood still but are subject to imaginative 'rewriting'. This rewriting is explained as a natural consequence of the interaction between religion and history: God speaks to humanity through the imagination, and human imagination is influenced by historical context. It is the imagination that ensures that religion continues to develop in new and challenging ways.
Other form:Print version: Brown, David, 1948 July 1- Tradition and imagination. Pbk. ed. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004 0198269919