People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture - Softcover

Jeffrey, David Lyle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802841775 ISBN 13: 9780802841773

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996

Synopsis

In this book David Lyle Jeffrey seeks to characterize illustratively the historical commitment of Christianity to the literacy and literature of Western culture. Against postmodernist tendencies to deride the historical commitment to meaning in Western art and literature as a regressive "logocentrism," Jeffrey argues that the biblical tradition-the cultural and literary identity forged among Western Christians by virtue of being a "People of the Book"-has in fact given rise to Western literacy. Jeffrey looks at the Christian "grand narrative" as it is reflected in Western literature, making apt use of the visual arts by incorporating a series of twenty-eight black-and-white illustrations that enrich and fortify the story it tells.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

By what means can the original scriptural purpose of Word and Book be more accurately reflected in contemporary analysis? How might that purpose better inform discussion on all sides concerning the central place of the Book in Christian identity and literary culture? Perhaps, Jeffrey suggests, by recognizing that for Christian "people of the Book", at least, the proper function of the text, like the function of words themselves, is to be instrumental to human redemption, the redemption not only of personal meaning but of community meaning and, finally, of that communion with the Author that begins when the Word is taken to heart, ingested, incorporated, and made flesh in the actions of everyday life.

About the Author:

David Lyle Jeffrey, author of People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture (1996) and Houses of the Interpreter: Reading Scripture, Reading Culture (2003) is Distinguished Professor of Literature and the Humanities at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0802841775
• ISBN 13: 9780802841773
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 420