Readings on the Nature of Revelation

An account of revelation should speak to a variety of questions. Among them: what has God revealed? (the question of content); how does God reveal? (the question of revelation’s media); and not to be forgotten, where does revelation figure in God’s economy? (the question of revelation’s systematic location). More than a few theologians now have warned that the doctrine only suffers when it’s lifted from its proper dogmatic context and conscripted to serve as the epistemic foundation for the rest of a system. Many more interesting subtopics could be included. So for those with an interest in such matters, here’s a list of relatively recent treatments of the topic. I’ve tried drawing from a variety of perspectives. They’ll give you a sense for the history and current state of the conversation. If I come across other titles that deserve flagging, I’ll add them to the list. Feel welcome to offer your own suggestions.

(listed chronologically — since Barth)

  • Karl Barth, (1932) Church Dogmatics,1.1
  • G. C. Berkouwer, (1955) Studies in Dogmatics: General Revelation
  • John Baillie, (1956) The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought
  • Emil Brunner, (1964) Truth as Encounter
  • Second Vatican Council, (1965) Dei Verbum
  • Edward Schillebeecx, (1967) Revelation and Theology
  • Gabriel Moran, (1967) Theology of Revelation
  • Wolfhart Pannenberg, (1968) Revelation as History
  • Carl Henry, (1976) God, Revelation and Authority
  • Paul Helm, (1982) The Divine Revelation: The Basic Issues
  • Ronald Thiemann, (1985) Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise
  • Rowan Williams, “Trinity and Revelation,” Modern Theology 2/3 (1986): 197-212.
  • Avery Dulles, (1992) Models of Revelation, 2nd Ed.
  • Christoph Schwobel, (1992) God, Action and Revelation
  • Colin Gunton, (1995) Brief Theology of Revelation
  • Nicolas Wolterstorff, (1995) Divine Discourse
  • Paul Avis, ed., (1997) Divine Revelation
  • Gabriel Fackre, (1997) The Doctrine of Revelation: A Narrative Approach
  • David Brown, (1999) Tradition and Imagination: Revelation and Change
  • Peter Jensen, (2002) The Revelation of God
  • William Abraham, (2006) Crossing the Threshold of Divine Revelation
  • Richard Swinburne, (2007) Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy, 2nd Ed.
  • John Frame, (2010) The Doctrine of the Word of God
  • Matthew Levering, (2014) Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation

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