Biblical Perspectives on Nature

The ultimate goal of this course is to consider a new way of thinking about religion, a way which takes the natural world seriously. More specifically, the goal is to consider this new way of thinking in relation to the Bible, and to examine what role nature plays in biblical thought. At the end of the course, we hope all of us will know better how to take creation seriously in our biblical interpretation, in our linking of the Bible and ministry, and in our practice of ministry itself.

To achieve these ends, this course will examine the understanding of nature in the Bible and evaluate of the implications of biblical values for contemporary thought. The perspective of the course is thus both historical and theological. On the one hand, the attitudes and values in the Bible will be examined through a close study of selected biblical texts in the light of the ancient physical, political, and religious environment in which they arose. On the other hand, the relationship between these biblical viewpoints and contemporary concepts of nature will be examined in order to asses the significance of biblical attitudes for modern environmental theology, ethics, and ministry.

We think this is such an important concern that we want to get the word out to the church more broadly, so we are considering writing a book about the issues in this course for a broader audience. And we would like you to help us think about what such a book would look like and what kind of book would be most helpful. We’ll be asking you, as leaders of the church, for your advice.

BOOKS AND RESOURCES:

Hiebert, Theodore. The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel. New York: Oxford, 1996. (Purchase from Instructors, $22)

McKibben, Bill. The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation. Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2005.

Rossing, Barbara. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.

Selected articles to be copied cooperatively by the class.

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS:

Exegetical Paper: A five page study of a biblical text, due April 29. The primary aim of this study is to describe the way in which the text reflects the ancient author’s attitudes toward nature, and a secondary aim is to evaluate the significance of these attitudes for contemporary thought and ministry.

Group Class Presentation: A class presentation and handout on a contemporary environmental issue, on a date to be negotiated. The handout will contain 1) biblical resources, 2) liturgical resources, and 3) practical and ethical resources, each three pages. The aim of the presentation and handout is to provide one another with resources for ministry.

Final Paper: A ten page paper which you may design and which may be research or ministry oriented, according to the instructions below. A proposal will be due April 5 and the final paper will be due May 5.

Instructions for Exegetical Work in All Written Assignments

Aim:

The primary aim of exegetical work is to describe the way in which a text reflects its author’s attitude toward nature. The primary focus will be the ancient world: What was the original environmental setting of the text and how does its point of view reflect this setting? What attitudes toward nature were held by the author and how are they expressed in the context of this ancient setting?

In addition to this major historical aim of your exegesis, you are encouraged to comment also on the significance of the biblical attitudes you have identified in the text for our thought and behavior today. Does the Bible present us with an obstacle or a resource for constructing a healthy perspective on the environment?

In the exegetical paper, you might consider devoting about three fourths of your study and presentation to your primary aim, the historical sense of the text, and one fourth to your secondary aim, its relationship with the contemporary world. In your final paper, devote at least half of your work (five pages) to exegetical analysis.

Procedure:

The Biblical Text

  1. For the Exegetical Paper, select a text from the assignments on the course syllabus related to the topic of your study. A chapter or less, e.g. ten to twenty verses, is plenty for a short study such as this. Do not type out the text itself as part of your essay. You can assume your readers have the Bible in front of them. The selection of biblical texts for the other two assignments will depend on the topic selected.
  2. Spend some time doing your own careful analysis of the text, looking primarily for answers in the concrete details of the text to two questions: What actual physical environment is reflected in these details? What attitudes toward nature are represented in the text? Trust yourself. Do not rely on “experts” alone to tell you what the text says.
  3. As you write up your findings, always use concrete data—specific words and phrases—from the biblical text to illustrate your comments and to support your conclusions. Always give references, chapter and verse, to the part of the text you are describing.
  4. If you have taken biblical Hebrew or Greek, please use it in your analysis as much as you can. There is no substitute for the real thing. Every translation is a new and different text from the original.

Secondary Sources:

In addition to your own analysis of the biblical text, you should broaden your own perspective by considering the analysis and conclusions of other scholars, from the following sources in particular:

  1. Take into consideration the analysis of the scholars assigned for reading on the topic related to the text you have selected. You may enlist these scholars in support of your interpretation, or you may wish to argue against them.
  2. Use if possible the readings on the Bible’s ancient environment to assist you in describing the text’s natural setting. Also consider the relevance for your conclusions of the points of view represented in the essays on nature in the Bible assigned on February 8.
  3. Incorporate the analysis of your text in scholarly commentaries on the biblical book from which your text is taken.

You may of course include any other secondary material you wish, in addition to these sources, to illustrate or support your analysis. Remember, these scholars may hold old ideas of nature in the Bible, but it is important to engage their arguments, build on their insights, and critique their weaknesses.

Your written work must follow proper rules for research paper form as these are described in the McCormick Student Handbook on pp. 33-36. These rules are based on the sixth edition of Kate L Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, available in the bookstore. It must be accompanied by a bibliography of the secondary sources you have consulted.

The Historical Research Option:

You may wish to do additional work on biblical attitudes toward nature by doing an extended study of a biblical text in which you are particularly interested and which we did not have the opportunity to deal with in class. Or you may want to pursue a theme on nature in the Bible (e.g. sacred space, the redemption of nature, agriculture, etc.) in greater detail. In such a study, you would devote your primary energies to uncovering the historical setting and attitudes of the Bible itself, but you could also reflect on the contemporary implications of these attitudes.

The Contemporary Ministry Option:

You may wish to design a project in which you can explore the contemporary use of the Bible in environmental theology and ethics. For this kind of project you might wish to consider some of the following ideas.

* A sermon using biblical text, from the lectionary or of you own choice, to develop environmental themes.

* An evaluation of the use of the Bible in an existing religious education curriculum on the environment, or the writing of a new curriculum or Bible study series.

* An evaluation of the use of the Bible in public statements made by your denomination on environmental responsibility.

* An evaluation of the use of the Bible by a contemporary environmental theologican, ethicist, or popular writer.

* An evaluation of the use of the Bible by an influential pro- or anti-environmental group or movement and its importance for the church.

* A biblical and ethical rationale for supporting a particular political and social policy, such as the clean air act.

COURSE SCHEDULE AND READINGS:

Week 1: Introduction—What Do the Bible and Christian Ministry Have to Do with Nature?

Week 2: Did the Bible Get Us into This Fix?

  • Kolbert, Elizabeth. “The Climate of Man—II, III,” The New Yorker (May 2, 9, 2005).
  • White, Lynn, Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155 (1967): 1203-7. Reprinted in Ecology and Religion in History, ed. David and Eileen Spring, 15-31. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “The ‘Problem’ of Nature in the Bible.” In The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel, 3-29. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  • Habel, Norman C. “Six Ecojustice Principles” and “Introducing the Earth Bible.” In Readings from the Perspective of the Earth, ed. Norman C. Habel, 24-42. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

Recommended:

  • Habel, Norman C. “Guiding Ecojustice Principles.” In Readings from the Perspective of the Earth, ed. Norman C. Habel, 38-47. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
  • Hendry George. “The Problem of Nature in Theology.” In Theology of Nature, 11-30. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “Rethinking Traditional Approaches to Nature in the Bible.” In Theology for Earth Community: A Field Guide, ed. Dieter T. Hessel, 23-30. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1996.
  • “Re-imaging Nature: Shifts in Biblical Interpretation.” Interpretation 50 (1996): 36-46.
  • Kaufman, Gordon. “A Problem for Theology: The Concept of Nature.” Harvard Theological Review 65 (1972): 337-366. Reprinted as “Theology and the Concept of Nature.” In The Theological Imagination, 209-237. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981.
  • Rad, Gerhard von. “The Theological Problem of the Old Testament Doctrine of Creation.” In The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, trans. E. W. Trueman Dicken, 131-143. London: SCM Press, 1984. Reprinted in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. Bernhard W. Anderson, 53-64. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.
  • Robinson, H. Wheeler. “The Hebrew Conception of Nature.” In Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament, 1-15. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946.
  • Ruether, Rosemary Radford. “Woman, Body, and Nature: Sexism and the Theology of Creation.” In Sexism and God-Talk, 72-92. Boston: Beacon, 1983.
  • Santmire, H. Paul. The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology, 7-12, 175-88. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
  • Wright, G. Ernest. “Theology as Recital.” In God Who Acts, 33-58. London: SCM, 1951.
  • The Old Testament Against Its Environment. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1950.

Week 3: Field Trip— The Environment We’re Living In

  • A toxic tour of south Chicago sponsored by the Southeast Environmental Task Force guided by Aaron Rosinski. The bus will arrive in the McCormick parking lot north of the McCormick building at 12:50 and will leave promptly at 1:00.
  • Read the information on the website of the Southeast Environmental Task Force: www.southeastenvironmental.org.
  • Mendelsohn, Betsy. “Rustbelt Hell or Redevelopment Heaven? Lake Calumet: Land of Contrasts.”
  • Locate and read your own denomination’s statement on the environment.

Recommended: Pellow, David Naguib. Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.

Week 4: Eco-justice and Environmental Racism

  • Bible: Genesis 1; 1 Kings 21:1-16; Revelation 22
  • Declaration and Action Plan of the National Black Church Environmental and Economic Justice Summit . Washington, D.C., 1993
  • Cone, James H. “Whose Earth Is It, Anyway?” In Earth Habitat: Eco-Justice and the Church’s Response, ed. Dieter Hessel and Larry Rasmussen, 23-32. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001.
  • Rasmussen, Larry. “Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice: Moral Theory in the Making.” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 24.1 (2004): 3-28.
  • “Epiphany: It’s Time to See What Is, as it is—from Bethlehem to New Orleans.” The Lutheran Magazine (January, 2006). www.thelutheran.org/article/article.cfm?article_id=5655&key=31979023
  • Rieger, Joerg. “Re-envisioning Ecotheology and the Divine from the Margins.” Ecoltheology 9.1 (2004): 65-85.
  • George Zechariah. “Towards a Subaltern Earth Ethics: the Narmada Bachao Andolan as Texts.” Dissertation Proposal, 1-16.
  • Boff, Leonardo. “Liberation Theology and Ecology: Alternative, Confrontation or Complementarity?” In Ecology and Poverty, ed. Leonardo Boff and Virgil Elizondo, 67-77. London: SCM Press, 1995.
  • Tinker, George E. “Creation as Kin.” In After Nature’s Revolt: Eco-Justice and Theology, ed. Dieter T. Hessel, 144-153. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992.

Recommended:

  • Shiva, Vandana. “Development, Ecology, and Women.” In Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Survival in India, 1-13. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1988.
  • Gnanadason, Aruna. “Traditions of Prudence Lost: a Tragic World of Broken Relationships.” In Ecofeminism and Globalization: Exploring Culture, Context, and Religion, ed. Heather Eaton and Lois Ann Lorentzen, 73-87. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003.

Week 5: The Environment of the Bible: Family Farming

Primary Texts:

  • Bible: Genesis 1-4, 12-18; Exodus 21-23; Deuteronomy 14-15, 26; Leviticus 25; Luke 4, 8, 13, 15, 16.
  • Josephus. The Jewish War. Book I: 218-21, 303-16, 403; Book II: 402-407, 424-27; Book III: 35-58.
  • Hopkins, David C. “Life on the Land: The Subsistence Struggles of Early Israel.” Biblical Archaeologist 50 (1987): 178-91.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “The Primeval Age” and “The Ancestors in Canaan.” In The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel, 30-116. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  • Horsley, Richard A. “Village and Family” and “ Galilean Village Economy and the Political- Economic Structure of Roman Palestine.” In Galilee: History, Politics, People, 189-221. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995.

Recommended:

  • Frankfort , H. and H. A. “The Emancipation of Thought from Myth.” In Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, 363-88. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946.
  • Brueggemann, Walter. The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith, 2d ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002.
  • Berry, Wendell. The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, 3-14. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986.

Week 6: Creation & Dominion: The Natural World and the Human Place within It

  • Bible: Genesis 1-3; Psalms 8, 74, 89, 104, 115, 148; Proverbs 8; 1 Corinthians 8-10.
  • Barr, James. “Man and Nature: The Ecological Controversy and the Old Testament.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 55 (1972): 9-32. Reprinted in Ecology and Religion in History, ed. David and Eileen Spring, 48-75. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
  • Callicott, J. Baird. “Genesis and John Muir.” In Covenant for a New Creation, ed. Carol S. Robb and Carl J. Casebolt, 107-40. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “The Human Vocation: Origins and Transformations in Christian Traditions.” In Christianity and Ecology, ed. Dieter T. Hessel and Rosemary Radford Ruether, 135-154. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.
  • “Imago Dei or Imago Dirt: Who in the World Are We?” Inaugural Address, February 26, 2003.
  • Beisner, E. Calvin. “Evangelical Environmental Worldview and Theology: Strengths and Weaknesses.” In Where Garden Meets Wilderness, 9-26. Grand Rapids, MI: Acton Institute and Eerdmans, 1997.
  • Read about “Dominionism” at www.theocracywatch.org.
  • Reumann, John. “An Early Christian Credo about Christ and Creation.” In Creation and New Creation: The Past, Present, and Future of God’s Creative Activity, 24-31. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973.

Recommended:

  • Anderson, Bernhard W. “Creation and Ecology.” American Journal of Theology and Philosophy 1 (1983): 14-30. Reprinted in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. Bernhard W. Anderson, 152-171. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.
  • “Human Dominion over Nature.” In Biblical Studies in Contemporary Thought, ed. Miriam Ward, 27-45. Winchendon, Mass.: Greeno, Hadden & Company, 1975. Reprinted in From Creation to New Creation, 111-131. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994.
  • ed. Creation in the Old Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.
  • From Creation to New Creation. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1994.
  • Hall, Douglas John. “Biblical Sources of the Symbol” and “Stewardship as Key to a Theology of Nature.” In The Steward: A Biblical Symbol Come of Age, 14-29, 101-113. New York: Friendship Press for Commission on Stewardship, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 1982.
  • Imaging God: Dominion as Stewardship. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1986.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “Rethinking Dominion Theology.” Direction 25 (1996): 16-25.
  • Reumann, John. “Excursus: ‘The Christ Hymn’ in Colossians 1 in Recent Discussion.” In Creation and New Creation: The Past, Present, and Future of God’s Creative Activity, 42-56. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973.
  • Simkins, Ronald A. Creator and Creation: Nature in the World View of Ancient Israel. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994.
  • Trebilco, Paul. “The Goodness and Holiness of the Earth and the Whole Creation (1 Timothy 4.1-5).” In Readings from the Perspective of the Earth, ed. Norman C. Habel, 204-220. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

Week 7: The Environment of the Bible: Urbanization and Empire

  • Bible: Genesis 12-14; 1 Samuel 8; 2 Samuel 5-7; 1 Kings 12, 16, 21; Psalms 46, 48, 87; Amos; Isaiah 1-5; Ezekiel 26-27; Habakkuk 1-2; Acts 2, 4, 17-19; Romans 15, 16; Revelation 13, 18.
  • Chaney, Marvin. “Bitter Bounty: The Dynamics of Political Economy Critiqued by the Eighth- Century Prophets.” In Reformed Faith and Economics, ed. Robert Stivers, 15-30. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989.
  • Meeks, Wayne. “The Urban Environment of Pauline Christianity.” In The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 9-50. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
  • Bauckham, Richard. “The Economic Critique of Rome in Revelation 18.” In Images of Empire, ed. Loveday Alexander, 47-86. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.

Recommended:

  • Frick, Frank S. “The Path to Statehood: A Synthesis.” In The Formation of the State in Ancient Israel, 191-204. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985.
  • March 29: Apocalyptic Perspectives on Nature: Escapist or Engaged?

Primary Texts:

  • Bible: Isaiah 24-27, 65-66; Zechariah 12-14; Daniel 7-12; Revelation 6, 12, 16, 21-22.
  • Apocrypha: 2 Esdras 6:1-7:44; 9-11.
  • Hanson, Paul D. “Defining Old Testament Apocalyptic.” In Old Testament Apocalyptic, 25-43. Nashville: Abingdon, 1987.
  • Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing, 61- 84. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992.
  • Rossing, Barbara. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. Chapters 1-2. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.
  • “ River of Life in God’s New Jerusalem: An Ecological Vision for Earth’s Future.” Currents in Theology and Mission 25 (1998): 487-499.
  • “Alas for Earth! Lament and Resistance in Revelation 12.” In The Earth Story in the New Testament, ed. Norman C. Habel and Vicky Balabonski, 180-192. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

Recommended:

  • Russell, David M. “Surveying the Terrain: Creation and Apocalyptic.” In The “New Heavens and New Earth”: Hope for the Creation in Jewish Apocalyptic and the New Testament, 18- 36. Philadelphia: Visionary Press, 1996.

Week 8: Apocalyptic Perspectives on Nature: Does Nature Need to Be Redeemed?

  • Bible: Isaiah 11, 24-27, 65-66; Zechariah 12-14; Daniel 7-12; Romans 8.
  • Cross, Frank Moore. “The Redemption of Nature.” The Princeton Seminary Bulletin (1989): 94-104.
  • Rolston, Holmes, III. “Does Nature Need to Be Redeemed?” Horizons in Biblical Theology 14 (1992): 143-72.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “Creation, the Fall, and Humanity’s Role in the Ecosystem.” In Creation and the Environment: An Anabaptist Perspective on a Sustainable World, ed. Calvin Redekop, 111-121. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
  • Jewett, Robert. “The Corruption and Redemption of Creation.” In Paul and the Roman Imperial Order, ed. Richard A. Horsley, ed., 25-45. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 2004.
  • Byrne, Brendan. “Creation Groaning: An Earth Bible Reading of Romans 8:18-22.” In Readings from the Perspective of the Earth, ed. Norman C. Habel, 193-203. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
  • Rossing, Barbara. “Bible Study on Romans 8.” In For the Healing of the World: Study Book for the Lutheran World Federation Tenth Assembly, 85-89. Geneva , 2002.

Recommended:

  • Russell, David M. “Creation and Redemption in the New Testament.” In The “New Heavens and New Earth”: Hope for the Creation in Jewish Apocalyptic and the New Testament, 134- 209. Philadelphia: Visionary Press, 1996.
  • Week 9: The World of Nature in Wisdom Literature
  • Bible: Proverbs 8, 10-15: Job 1-14, 38-42.
  • Murphy, Roland. “Wisdom and Creation.” Journal of Biblical Literature 104 (1985): 3-11.
  • McKibben, Bill. The Comforting Whirlwind: God, Job, and the Scale of Creation. Cambridge, MA: Cowley, 2005.
  • Sittler, Joseph. “Called to Unity.” In Evocations of Grace: the Writings of Joseph Sittler on Ecology, Theology, and Ethics, 38-50. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000.
  • Flor, Elmer. “The Cosmic Christ and Ecojustice in the New Cosmos (Ephesians 1).” In The Earth Story in the New Testament, ed. Norman Habel and Vicky Balabanski, 137-147.

Week 10: Sacred Geography, Worship, and the Liturgical Year

  • Bible: Genesis 12-13; Exodus 3, 12, 19-24, 34; Leviticus 23; Numbers 28-29; Deuteronomy 16; 1 Kings 5-8; Ezekiel 36, 47; Psalms 46, 48, 76, 84, 87, 122; Prov 3:13-18; Mark 4, John 15:1-11; Revelation 22.
  • Eliade, Mircea. “Symbolism of the ‘Centre.’” In Images and Symbols, 27-56. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1969.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “Theophany in the Old Testament.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, 6:505-511. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
  • “Ritual and Law” and “Religious Ritual and Worship.” In The Yahwist’s Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel, 126-129, 136-139. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  • Rasmussen, Larry. Earth Community Earth Ethics, 195-219. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994.
  • Angelou, Maya. “On the Pulse of Morning.”
  • Rossing, Barbara. The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation. Chapters 10-11. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.
  • “Lectionary Notes for Easter C.” In New Proclamation, ed. Marshall D. Johnson, 15-22. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.
  • Recommended:
  • Levenson, Jon D. “ Zion as the Cosmic Mountain,” “The Temple as Sacred Space,” “Sacred Space and Sacred Time,” and “The Meaning of the Cosmic Mountain in Israel.” In Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible, 111-176. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985.
  • Cohn, Robert L. The Shape of Sacred Space: Four Biblical Studies. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1981.
  • Hiebert, Theodore. “Altars of Stone and Bronze: Two Biblical Views of Technology.” Mission Studies 15 (1998): 75-84.
  • Vaux, Roland de. “The Ancient Feasts of Israel.” In Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, 484-506. New York: McGraw Hill, 1961.
  • Lane, Belden C. Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.
  • Daneel, M. L. “African Independent Churches Face the Challenge of Environmental Ethics.” In Ecotheology: Voices from South and North, ed. David G. Hallman, 248-263. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994.
  • Ingram, Beryl. “Eco-Justice Liturgics.” In Theology for Earth Community: A Field Guide, ed. Dieter T. Hessel, 250-264.Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996.

Week 11: Jesus: Environmental Issues in the Gospels

  • Rhoads, David. “Who Will Speak for the Sparrow? Eco-Justice Criticism of the New Testament.” In Literary Encounters with the Reign of God, 64-86. New York: T & T Clark, 2004.
  • Other readings to be announced.