Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Natur und Schöpfung (Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie: Band 034, Jahr 2019): 34.2019

The threat to nature from humans, the threat to humans from nature, but also the joy of nature are formative experiences of the present. Powerful cultural currents idealize nature, while others strive to overcome it. In this highly charged debate about nature and its relationship to creation, the volume offers suggestions for orientation and distinctions that arise from exploring the biblical traditions. After an introduction to the problem and the ambiguity of the concept of nature by Günter Thomas, the anthology, the Conception of the yearbook accordingly, first following the biblical basics. Sara Kipfer, Konrad Schmid and Markus Saur shed light on experiences and ideas of nature in the Hebrew Bible, especially the relationship between nature and order as well as nature and creation. Tobias Niklas, Ruben Zimmermann and Samuel Vollenweider examine the understanding of nature in the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, but then also the hope for nature in Paul. With Francis of Assisi's Canticle of the Sun, the perceptions of nature in Romanticism and the question of the legibility of the 'Book of Nature', Volker Leppin, Willemien Otten and Wolfgang Schobert turn to powerful historical phenomena in the theological imagination of nature. The contributions by Johanna Rahner and Rainer Hagencord open up classic dogmatic and animal ethical perspectives. Sven Grosse, Mirjam Zimmermann and Johannes Eurich deal with the position of nature as creation in Christian poetry, religious instruction and, last but not least, in diakonia. The volume 'Nature and Creation' of the 'Yearbook for Biblical Theology' Topic compact, fascinating insights into theological research, further thought impulses and critical orientation towards the present from the biblical disciplines and the fields into which the biblical texts and insights radiate.