Search results for ""Author W. Francois""

Syncrétisme et inculturation : ces deux termes proviennent de disciplines distinctes ; ils suggèrent des perspectives différentes et souvent ressenties comme contradictoires. Au regard de l’évangélisation, l’inculturation est volontiers présentée comme un but à atteindre tandis que le syncrétisme est souvent synonyme de tromperie et de compromission. Identité et métissage, fidélité et changement, cohérence et bricolage : ces questions ne sont pas neuves mais elles se posent aujourd’hui à l’échelle mondiale et dans des sociétés en transformation rapide. Dès l’origine, les communautés chrétiennes ont dû se définir face au judaïsme et aux paganismes. L’histoire montre que le christianisme n’a jamais cessé de se recontextualiser. L’anthropologie et la sociologie mettent en lumière des situations bien spécifiques : Afrique occidentale et centrale, Amérique Latine, Europe… La théologie explore le rapport aux sources de la foi et l’inscription changeante dans les cultures. Et c’est bien entendu dans le champ des pratiques que surgissent les défis et que des réponses sont attendues : sacrements et rites de passage, pédagogie et transmission du message, construction d’une spiritualité personnelle. Les arts – en particulier les arts visuels – sont un bon révélateur des échecs et des promesses de l’inculturation.

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The Maurits Sabbe Library of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) holds an exceptional treasury of manuscripts and printed books dating from the 10th to the 19th century. As part of KU Leuven Libraries it is recognised as a Heritage Library of the Flemish Community. This beautifully illustrated volume explores fourty-five remarkable books representing the immense variety and richness of the collections in the Maurits Sabbe Library. The described Bibles, missals, atlases, religious, devotional, historical, botanical, and medical works are all reflecting the wealth of one of the most distinctive rare book collections in the Low Countries.

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The book's title alludes to Gregory the Great's famous metaphor in his Moralia in Job: The Bible is like a stream, broad and deep, shallow enough for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough for the elephant to swim. Gregory's intention was to show that the Bible contains several levels of instruction, so that it is fully accessible to both the lettered and the unlettered. This powerful metaphor has been applied and re-applied in various Christian traditions, and has been given expression in many and various ways. In this book, it is understood as a reference to the diverse biblical genres, vernacular and scholarly, as well as literary and pictorial, illustrating the wide reception of the Bible throughout history, both among the educated and uneducated. The articles included in this volume deal with diverse aspects of the history of the Church and theology, literary history, art history, and book history, but above all give testimony to the broad reception of the Bible in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Era.

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The Pauline expressions "infant milk" and "hardy nourishment" or "solid food" (cf. 1 Cor 3,2 and Heb 5,12-14) have frequently been used by the Church fathers, medieval preachers and early modern writers, to voice the contrasting opinions that the words of Scripture are either simple to understand for the uneducated laity, or only discernable for professional theologians. Hence, the present volume considers the place of the Scriptures in both lay spirituality and in theological thinking. It includes a wide range of articles, dealing with vernacular Bible translations intended for common people, visual Bible culture, Bible commentaries written by theologically and philologically skilled scholars, and other related topics. The essays have been arranged in a chronological order, and divided into three sections, the first part considering the period from 1450 to 1520. This period begins when the mediaeval production of Bible translations is at a peak, and when another readership, other than the clergy, has increasingly found its way to the Bible. The printing press, which makes an appearance at the time, provides an immediate response to this growing demand. During the same period, also in the north, we see the gradual rise of humanism, which for figures such as Erasmus and Lefevre d'Etaples, also entailed a great interest in the Bible sources (ad fontes). In 1519 Erasmus published his Novum Testamentum (a revised version of his 1516 Novum Instrumentum), providing from 1520 the basis for various vernacular Bible publications. His Paraphrases on diverse books of the New Testament also appealed to a broad reading public. The effects of this Biblical humanism provide the point of departure for the second part of this book. During the same decennia, through the influence of the Reformation and its sola scriptura principle, new translations became available. The response to this new Bible elan in Catholic circles was varied, from an absolute prohibition of Bible translation in the vernacular, to a cautious integration of a Biblical spirituality in teaching and preaching. The different contributions demonstrate how the religious diversity and plurality continues to expand in this period, with each group increasingly accentuating its own confessional identity. The way in which the Bible is dealt with reflects this process. In the seventeenth century, on which the third section of this book focuses, this evolution is pursued further. From the middle of this century however, an evolution takes place, with a growing number of exegetes taking a critical, scholarly attitude to the Bible, a development that is in an obvious relationship with the growing contemporary phenomenon of secularisation and rationalism. The present book will serve as a valuable companion to Lay Bibles in Europe 1450-1800 (eds. August den Hollander and Mathijs Lamberigts), the proceedings of the 2004 Amsterdam Conference with the same title, which has been published as volume 198 of the BETL-series.

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