Encountering Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible

by John Polkinghorne

Publisher:

SPCK

, 2010

Overview

Encountering Scripture provides a fresh look at the Bible from the analytical and rational perspective of a scientist. It tackles the big themes of the Bible and the questions a modern western thinker might bring to it. The nuanced, rational, and honest approach will be appreciated by any reader with an open and enquiring mind.

Issues of Scripture and authority, contradiction, and ambiguity are tackled with characteristic clarity, and the theological challenges of the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the writings of St. Paul are addressed with energy.

In the Logos edition, this valuable volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Scripture citations link directly to English translations, and important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.

Key Features

• Takes the reader on a journey to find great spiritual truth and beauty in Scripture
• Seeks careful and thoughtful engagement with the Bible
• Explores the landscape of Scripture that notes its features both inspiring and perplexing

Contents

• Scripture
• Development
• Creation and Fall
• Ambiguity
• Israel’s Bible
• The Gospels
• Cross and Resurrection
• The Pauline Writings
• Other New Testament Writings
• Profundity

Top Highlights

“Surely that image is to be found in the mentally handicapped as well as in the academically brilliant. Its presence is the theological basis for a fundamental belief in the worth of every individual human being. To my mind, it is the love of God bestowed on each individual, and the implicit ability to be aware of the divine presence, that constitute the essence of the imago dei.” (Page 25)

“The Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, understood that the ‘days’ of creation could not be literal periods of 24 hours and some considered that they might stand for vast expanses of time.” (Pages 22–23)

“At the heart of Christian faith lies the mysterious and exciting idea that the infinite and invisible God, beyond finite human powers to conceive adequately, has acted to make the divine nature known in the most fitting and accessible manner possible through the life of a first-century Jew in whom humanity and divinity were both truly present.” (Pages 2–3)

“four levels of meaning present in the Bible, essentially the literal, the moral, the symbolic and the spiritual.” (Page 5)

“For the Christian believer, the Resurrection makes sense because it represents a triple vindication. It is the vindication of Jesus, for his life had a character that meant that it should not have ended in rejection and failure. It is a vindication of God, who was not found after all to have abandoned the one who had wholly committed himself to doing his Father’s will. It is a vindication of a deep-seated human intuition that in the end the last word does not lie with death and futility, but we live in a world that is a meaningful cosmos and not ultimately a meaningless chaos.” (Page 78)

Praise for the Print Edition

John Polkinghorne’s belief that God’s creation helps make itself at every level allows him to fit into one picture evolution and its costliness and the Christian redemptive answer to human and natural evil.

—Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

• Title: Encountering Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible
• Author: John Polkinghorne
• Publisher: SPCK
• Publication Date: 2010
• Pages: 108

About John Polkinghorne

Rev Dr. John Polkinghorne (1930-2021) was a distinguished physicist who spent recent decades studying and writing about the relationship between science and faith. His physics career began at Cambridge where he studied under the legendary quantum pioneer P.A.M. Dirac and others, and he worked for 25 years in the field of theoretical elementary particle physics as a professor at Cambridge. He resigned his professorship in 1979 and became an Anglican priest, and since then has become a leading spokesman for the faith among serious scientists. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, and was appointed KBE (Knight Commander of the order of the British Empire) in 1997.