Skip to Main Content

Grains of Wheat: Suffering and Biblical Narratives

Online ISBN:
9780191967528
Print ISBN:
9780192871190
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Grains of Wheat: Suffering and Biblical Narratives

Eleonore Stump
Eleonore Stump

Robert J. Henle, SJ, Professor of Philosophy

Saint Louis University
,
USA
Find on
Published online:
18 February 2025
Published in print:
25 March 2025
Online ISBN:
9780191967528
Print ISBN:
9780192871190
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

There is a kind of knowledge that is non-propositional; one variety of it can be acquired in second-person experience of another person, but it can also be transmitted through narratives. This narratively mediated kind of knowledge can be significant for philosophical and theological reflection. Biblical narratives are specially fruitful in this regard, because they offer profound insights into the nature of the human condition and human flourishing. This book brings together detailed examinations of narratives in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to yield one large, emergent story which has something to teach that can be missed when the stories are taken in isolation from one another. These are the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham, Mary of Bethany, the temptations of Christ, the passion of Christ, and the story in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Taken together, these stories depict a possible world in which there is a good for suffering human beings that outweighs their suffering and that could not be gotten without the suffering, not even in a world without a Fall. On this emergent larger story, human suffering is defeated; and peace and joy in human life are possible.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close