Peter Ochs
Biography
Peter Ochs earned a PhD in Philosophy from Yale University and an MA in Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Ochs has served as Edgar M. Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies at the University of Virginia, and is a cofounder of the Society for Textual Reasoning. Ochs wrote Religion without Violence (2019) and edited The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity (2008) and Textual Reasonings (2003).
Bios generated by automated processes. · Report a problem
Philosophy
“I am not a pacifist, but reading John Howard Yoder the past several years, I am moving in his direction. Meanwhile, this remarkable collection of Yoder's writings offers wisdoms, bearing many other names, that enrich me in mind and spirit right now. There are wisdoms about the truth universal that resides in the particularity of my scriptural tradition, about the covenantal context in which ethics may be received, about why serving the good begins only where we are and why we can talk about it only from where we are, and about why, oh why, we have to be patient.”
Aquinas on Israel and the Church
Theology
“Tapie has provided a definitive study on Aquinas's complex and at times contradictory reading of Paul as supersessionist or not. In the process, Tapie offers the clearest teaching I have seen on the meaning of supersessionism in modern scholarship, from Isaac to Wyschogrod, Nostra Aetate, Levering, Soulen, and much more. Without covering over ambiguities (in) Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and Hebrews, he concludes with a sober yet hopeful account of the trajectory of Thomas's thinking--an account that should contribute significantly to contemporary discussions of Judaism and the church.”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“Too much theology today is written in words rather than deeds. But God sent his Word as a doing verb, and Alexia Salvatierra and Peter Heltzel teach and show what it means to share in the doing.”
Biblical Studies & Commentaries
“Yes, Michael Lodahl’s new book really matters. In this day of overproud religion and overproud unreligion, Matthew Matters breathes a loving and humble Spirit into the public square. Here is deep faith and gentleness, devotion to the gospel and hospitality to other peoples of the Book. Most timely of all, here is a renewal of John Wesley’s redoubled wisdom about God’s love: that, in Lodahl’s words, ‘Love does not force its way,’ and that, for the faithful, this love is a command ‘to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.’”
Preaching & Worship
“Here is a compelling, multi-leveled account of preaching in the Black church, integrating biography, Scripture study, homiletics, philosophy, and theology. Harris tells the story of his dual African American legacies: of slavery and racism on one side, and redemptive preaching on the other. He gleans a theology of preaching from his years as a professor of homiletics, as a pulpit preacher, and as an activist for civil rights and religious freedom. . . . It is an intellectually spicy and soulful account of how preaching the word can liberate the spirit.”
Paul, Philosophy, and the Theopolitical Vision
Philosophy
“Is it good news that Zizek, Badiou and Agamben have refound Paul? I am not yet sure, since this may signal a new route into the Word or a new route out. Paul, Philosophy, and the Theopolitical Vision offers urgent instruction on how to keep this a route in. And that is very good news indeed. A powerful, brilliant, and urgent book!”
Theology
“Will Lindsay dare to write so openly about Barth's theology as it stands before this icon of Jewish suffering and Jewish death? . . . Well, I shall say, read Mark Lindsay's book! Because neither Christian nor Jew in this century can avoid confronting the challenges of Auschwitz. And because Barth's return to Scripture, 'old' and 'new,' includes a return to the Jews.”
Reading Scripture with the Saints
Biblical Studies & Commentaries
“I cherish this book. For those who do not read Scripture, I know of no more important medicine for today's ills than reading it and no better book than this one for lessons in how to read. As for those who do read Scripture, the odds are that only very very few read it well. The binaries that define modern civilization tend to indwell our religions, as well, and thereby to indwell our readings. I know of no better medicine for poor reading than the instructions Clifton Black has gleaned from the saints and doctors of the church and winnowed through his own wise, capacious, and corrective hermeneutic.”
History & Biography
“You’ve got to hug this book. I hear Hauerwas’s voice on each page. You may sense his presence as he narrates the genesis of each of his books. And you may sense that he turns to his Lord’s presence as he asks what the fruits of his writings may be. If you hoped to read a book of his or even all his books, this is the book to read now.”
Risking Proclamation, Respecting Difference
Theology
“In Risking Proclamation, Respecting Difference, Chris Boesel has dared to host a dialogue among Karl Barth, radical postmodernists, religious Jews, and those Christian theologians who seek both to follow Christ and not turn their backs on the People Israel. This is one of the essential dialogues we need to have today, and Boesel is a most able host. He has set the table and served his delicious meal--with provisions for our various diets and with an invitation to eat according to our own tastes. Now it is time for us to converse!”
Philosophy
“Goodson and Stone's spirited gathering of Christian thinkers shows us not only why, but how Rorty's pragmatism needs an account of religion to ground its vision of hope and love. [It shows] why and how contemporary Christian theology needs a chastened pragmatism to bring its imaginings back down to earth. Here is an engaging philosophy and a critically minded theology, a reason for hope.”
Philosophy
“In its trans-epochal reach, Miklos Vető’s Expansion of Metaphysics . . . enables students of philosophy to ask the big questions once again: about self, will, evil, the good, love, creation, and God. The agent of this expansion is a renewal of Kant’s transcendental phenomenology and of its premodern sources: recovering the agency of will beyond being, of self and other, which is the agency of the good, agency of the loving creator whose gifts perpetually renewed, are being and existence.”
Theology
“This is a soul-wrenching book . . . for its author above all. John Howard Yoder measured his Church and our world with unyielding measures of reason and of witness. In The Heterodox Yoder, Paul Martens holds the words of his beloved John Yoder up to the same measure. No reading or discussion of Yoder will remain untouched by the results.”
Theology
“The New Yoder is John Howard Yoder as dialogue partner both with and against the grain of Adorno, Foucault, Derrida, de Certeau, Horkheimer, Rowan Williams, Said, Stout, Volf, and many more. Here is patient, Christian theological pacifism beyond the either/ors that burdened a previous generation: beyond universalism vs. isolationism, Church vs. world, politics vs. quietism, Scripture vs. social activism. Here the eschaton meets postmodernity. The result? Anguished laughter, exilic politics, apocalypse, and dialogue: the work of Yoder-reading for our time.”
Philosophy
“On one level, Scriptural Reasoning (SR) is a peace-making practice of scriptural study across the borders of religious traditions. On another level, SR names a unique type of reasoning that emerges from such study, especially within small groups that have practiced SR study over many months. Only a few SR thinkers have explored the relation of this reasoning to the academic disciplines. Jacob Goodson has taken the next, significant step: hosting a veritable symposium of SR thinkers in dialogue with well-known Western philosophers from Hegel to Eco. The result is a book of equally high imagination and sharp philosophic analysis, single-handedly projecting the reasoning of SR into mainstream philosophic discourse. A stunning achievement.”
The Politics of Practical Reason
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“This book is as discerning as its title. By way of a critical study of Jeffry Stout's Democracy and Tradition, author Mark Ryan offers a surprising defense of the theopolitical thinkers Stout often criticizes: Hauerwas and MacIntrye. The defense is surprising because it takes its measure not from postliberal theology but from the claim of analytic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe: that ethics is mere speculation unless it speaks to the realities of human desire. By this measure, argues Ryan, Hauerwas's Christian ethics may win reason's trust and philosophic ethics may lose it.”
Ethics, Culture & Social Issues
“The question of 'human life' has become a major theo-political battleground today in the USA — and battlegrounds are not the best environments for nurturing human life. David Gushee has entered the battleground the way he suggests St. Francis confronted the Crusades — not with another sword but with the Word. . . . Gushee's voice is one that believers of all faiths will want to engage. . . . This book leaves me happily breathless!”
NOTE: Only includes books currently in our catalog; not necessarily a complete list.
World Religions
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem