John Behr
Biographic Data
| ID | 3676795 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Behr |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Behr |
| SIGNATURE | BEHR J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Aberdeen |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8816-2386 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Selected Essays, Volume II: Studies in Theology
Nos traditions théologiques revisitées pour faire face au défi écologique
« Elle passe, la figure de ce monde ». C’est ainsi que l’apôtre Paul mettait en garde il y a deux millénaires. Le présent exposé examinera, parmi les sources de la tradition, celles qui, au lieu de déplorer une stabilité perdue, considèrent plutôt le cycle de genesis et de phthora , de venue à l’existence et de disparition, comme le processus par lequel Dieu amène l’ensemble de la création au résultat final prévu dès le commencement. Nous allons …
Selected Essays, Volume I: Studies in Patristics
Reading from the End, Looking Forward
A consideration of the way in which the Scriptures are used in Orthodox Liturgy, the history of how the proclamation of the gospel, “in accordance with the Scriptures (OT),” led to the writings of the Apostle and then the composition of the gospels, and the hermeneutics implied in this, leads to the conclusion that something like a perspectival or paradigm shift is required in our mental framework when reading Scripture, from that implied and imp…
Irenaeus' Gratitude and Derrida's Gift: Time, Death, Life
Irenaeus Gratitude and Derridas Gift: Time, Death, Life
Our mother church: Mary and ecclesiology
This essay, based upon the inaugural Bishop Geoffrey Rowell Memorial Lecture, delivered at Chichester Cathedral in November 2022 in association with the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, examines the Scriptural background in Isaiah and Genesis for the way in which early Christians spoke about the Church as Mother or even the Virgin Mother, and how that in turn influenced the ways in which they spoke about Mary. The Chur…
John the Theologian: Appreciation of Responses
Reading the Scriptures Anew
Item does not contain fulltext
The Cross
This chapter examines the role of the cross in early Christianity, both in constituting Scripture as Scripture and as a privileged locus of scriptural interpretation. It is through the apocalyptic unveiling of Scripture by the cross that the meaning of Scripture is revealed, so that it can be read as Scripture, and the gospel proclaimed on its basis. The cross is also a particularly fertile image, expounded both through scriptural images, from th…
Synchronic and Diachronic Harmony: St. Irenaeus on Divine Simplicity
John Behr probes the teaching of Irenaeus on divine simplicity. Behr cautions against viewing divine simplicity as a philosophical or theological element that Irenaeus settles prior to his engagement with the scriptural economy of salvation. He warns that to understand Irenaeus’ approach in this way would separate “theology” and “economy” in a manner that supposes that the former does not arise fundamentally from the latter. Behr sets forth brief…
“One God Father Almighty”
“One God Father Almighty” is among the most basic Christian confessions. In this article, John Behr argues that the precise order of these four words is not random. In his works, Origen reflects on the scriptural titles for God and Christ, and concludes that “Almighty” does not precede the title “Father,” since the Father is Almighty through the Son, in whom all things were made. Building on Origen's scriptural exegesis, Gregory of Nyssa interpre…
Unveiling the Pathos of Life: The Phenomenology of Michel Henry and the Theology of John the Evangelist
From the early centuries, the Evangelist John has been referred to as “the theologian.” And rightly so, for Christian theology, as we have come to know it, is inconceivable without his Gospel and especially its Prologue. Its words have provided the vocabulary for theological reflection thereafter, and it seems certain that, until the middle to the end of the second century, the annual celebration of Christ’s Passion, Pascha, was only celebrated b…
The Role of Death in Life: A Multidisciplinary Examination of the Relationship between Life and Death
Patristic Humanism
This chapter shows that the church fathers conceived of the Christian life as paideia, as an education in humanity based on incarnational Christology. It delineates the main features of Christian paideia, an educational programme in which the best of human learning and culture is harnessed for the transformation into Christlikeness and thus into full humanity. It reveals how patristic humanism is based on the correlation of reason and faith, and …
Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity
In this contextual study of Irenaeus of Lyons, the first great theologian of the Christian tradition, John Behr sets Irenaeus both within his own context of the second century and our own contemporary context
Response to Ayres: The Legacies of Nicaea, East and West
In his work, Nicaea and Its Legacy , Lewis Ayres raises a number of issues important to the discipline of theology. The first is simply the difficulty of studying the past, especially the fourth century, one of the key periods in the formation of Christian theology. Reading texts from fifteen hundred years ago is sufficiently challenging, but these texts are set in a very complex history (or histories) of theological, social and imperial controve…
Final Reflections
As a concluding comment, I should like to return to the point raised by Ayres, that it is not enough simply to tell a better version of the fourth-century history in the expectation that modern theologians will finally get it straight! This is a valid point: if we want to have Christianity's fourth-century heritage taken seriously, we need to be in dialogue with modern writers. But, if there is to be a dialogue, both sides must be allowed to spea…
Cyril of Alexandria. Norman Russell
The Rational Animal: A Rereading of Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opificio
Journal of Early Christian Studies - Volume 7, Number 2, Summer 1999
Unveiling the Pathos of Life: The Phenomenology of Michel Henry and the Theology of John the Evangelist
From the early centuries, the Evangelist John has been referred to as “the theologian.” And rightly so, for Christian theology, as we have come to know it, is inconceivable without his Gospel and especially its Prologue. Its words have provided the vocabulary for theological reflection thereafter, and it seems certain that, until the middle to the end of the second century, the annual celebration of Christ’s Passion, Pascha, was only celebrated b…
The Rational Animal: A Rereading of Gregory of Nyssa's De hominis opificio
Journal of Early Christian Studies - Volume 7, Number 2, Summer 1999
Cyril of Alexandria. Norman Russell
Response to Ayres: The Legacies of Nicaea, East and West
In his work, Nicaea and Its Legacy , Lewis Ayres raises a number of issues important to the discipline of theology. The first is simply the difficulty of studying the past, especially the fourth century, one of the key periods in the formation of Christian theology. Reading texts from fifteen hundred years ago is sufficiently challenging, but these texts are set in a very complex history (or histories) of theological, social and imperial controve…
Final Reflections
As a concluding comment, I should like to return to the point raised by Ayres, that it is not enough simply to tell a better version of the fourth-century history in the expectation that modern theologians will finally get it straight! This is a valid point: if we want to have Christianity's fourth-century heritage taken seriously, we need to be in dialogue with modern writers. But, if there is to be a dialogue, both sides must be allowed to spea…
Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity
In this contextual study of Irenaeus of Lyons, the first great theologian of the Christian tradition, John Behr sets Irenaeus both within his own context of the second century and our own contemporary context
The Role of Death in Life: A Multidisciplinary Examination of the Relationship between Life and Death
Patristic Humanism
This chapter shows that the church fathers conceived of the Christian life as paideia, as an education in humanity based on incarnational Christology. It delineates the main features of Christian paideia, an educational programme in which the best of human learning and culture is harnessed for the transformation into Christlikeness and thus into full humanity. It reveals how patristic humanism is based on the correlation of reason and faith, and …
“One God Father Almighty”
“One God Father Almighty” is among the most basic Christian confessions. In this article, John Behr argues that the precise order of these four words is not random. In his works, Origen reflects on the scriptural titles for God and Christ, and concludes that “Almighty” does not precede the title “Father,” since the Father is Almighty through the Son, in whom all things were made. Building on Origen's scriptural exegesis, Gregory of Nyssa interpre…
Unveiling the Pathos of Life: The Phenomenology of Michel Henry and the Theology of John the Evangelist
From the early centuries, the Evangelist John has been referred to as “the theologian.” And rightly so, for Christian theology, as we have come to know it, is inconceivable without his Gospel and especially its Prologue. Its words have provided the vocabulary for theological reflection thereafter, and it seems certain that, until the middle to the end of the second century, the annual celebration of Christ’s Passion, Pascha, was only celebrated b…
The Cross
This chapter examines the role of the cross in early Christianity, both in constituting Scripture as Scripture and as a privileged locus of scriptural interpretation. It is through the apocalyptic unveiling of Scripture by the cross that the meaning of Scripture is revealed, so that it can be read as Scripture, and the gospel proclaimed on its basis. The cross is also a particularly fertile image, expounded both through scriptural images, from th…
Synchronic and Diachronic Harmony: St. Irenaeus on Divine Simplicity
John Behr probes the teaching of Irenaeus on divine simplicity. Behr cautions against viewing divine simplicity as a philosophical or theological element that Irenaeus settles prior to his engagement with the scriptural economy of salvation. He warns that to understand Irenaeus’ approach in this way would separate “theology” and “economy” in a manner that supposes that the former does not arise fundamentally from the latter. Behr sets forth brief…
John the Theologian: Appreciation of Responses
Reading the Scriptures Anew
Item does not contain fulltext
Reading from the End, Looking Forward
A consideration of the way in which the Scriptures are used in Orthodox Liturgy, the history of how the proclamation of the gospel, “in accordance with the Scriptures (OT),” led to the writings of the Apostle and then the composition of the gospels, and the hermeneutics implied in this, leads to the conclusion that something like a perspectival or paradigm shift is required in our mental framework when reading Scripture, from that implied and imp…
Irenaeus' Gratitude and Derrida's Gift: Time, Death, Life
Irenaeus Gratitude and Derridas Gift: Time, Death, Life
Our mother church: Mary and ecclesiology
This essay, based upon the inaugural Bishop Geoffrey Rowell Memorial Lecture, delivered at Chichester Cathedral in November 2022 in association with the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, examines the Scriptural background in Isaiah and Genesis for the way in which early Christians spoke about the Church as Mother or even the Virgin Mother, and how that in turn influenced the ways in which they spoke about Mary. The Chur…
Selected Essays, Volume II: Studies in Theology
Nos traditions théologiques revisitées pour faire face au défi écologique
« Elle passe, la figure de ce monde ». C’est ainsi que l’apôtre Paul mettait en garde il y a deux millénaires. Le présent exposé examinera, parmi les sources de la tradition, celles qui, au lieu de déplorer une stabilité perdue, considèrent plutôt le cycle de genesis et de phthora , de venue à l’existence et de disparition, comme le processus par lequel Dieu amène l’ensemble de la création au résultat final prévu dès le commencement. Nous allons …
Selected Essays, Volume I: Studies in Patristics
Philosophy (18 works) · Art (12 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (12 works) · Theology (12 works) · Literature (8 works) · Historical and Linguistic Studies (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · History (5 works) · Linguistics (5 works) · Byzantine Studies and History (4 works)