Interpretation 66, 1 (2012)

Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, is now being published by SAGE. The first SAGE issue is now out and contains essays devoted to the theme of ‘Liturgy and Pentecost/Trinity Sunday’. For a while, at least, it is freely available online here.

The main essays and their abstracts are as follows:

Beverly Roberts Gaventa

Pentecost and Trinity

Luke’s story of Pentecost gathers into itself many biblical motifs having to do with the work of the Spirit, which creates and re-creates communities of faith, even if it remains out of their control. Trinity Sunday returns us to the richness of Scripture’s reflections on God, where we find the constant feature to be the claim that, in all God’s doing, God acts for us and for our salvation.

Andreas Schuele

The Spirit of YHWH and the Aura of Divine Presence

One of the characteristics of Spirit language in the Old Testament is that it occurs in places that have particular significance for the literary formation as well as the theological profile of the Hebrew Scriptures. This essay examines texts from 1 Samuel, Ezekiel, Isaiah 40–66, and Psalm 104 and reconstructs an awareness across the biblical traditions that the experience of divine presence unfolds in and through the “Spirit” as part of God’s “aura.”

Jennifer L. Lord

Pentecost and Trinity Sunday: Preaching and Teaching New Creation

Any renewal of preaching and teaching on Pentecost and Trinity Sundays will be helped by revisiting the nature of these feasts as inseparable from the larger paschal cycle. From the perspective of the larger feast cycle, the preacher and teacher can see these feast days as eschatological proclamation: the ongoing gift of the Holy Spirit is the work of new creation; all creation’s existence, redemption, and sanctification are the results of the ongoing work of the holy Trinity for the life of the world.

Jeremy S. Begbie

The Holy Spirit at Work in the Arts: Learning from George Herbert

If we want some clarity about the relation of the arts to the Holy Spirit of the Christian faith, it is wise to let the arts have proper space to operate theologically. The remarkable poem by George Herbert, “Ephes. 4. 30,” along with material from some of his other poems, gives a fair sense of what Herbert would have assumed about the relation of the arts to the third person of the Trinity, and is especially enlightening for the theology–arts discussion today.

Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons

The Feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday: Liturgical Art in Context

This article explores several visual depictions of the event of Pentecost and the doctrine of the Trinity from the history of Christian art. These images can aid contemporary faith communities seeking to reflect in liturgy and worship on the theological significance of these mysteries of the Christian faith.