Recent publications on Old Testament wisdom literature perpetuate the theory of a ‘crisis in wisdom’ and leave unresolved the question of its provenance within Old Testament theology. Despite considerable diversity within the wisdom corpus, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job are in basic agreement regarding wisdom’s limitations and benefits, as well as regarding divine freedom and retribution. Thu...

Looking back on my work in practical theology so far, I have always searched for teaching and research that matters to real people. My student years were not always too fulfilling in that respect. I learned a lot of course, and some of the material we studied was intellectually rather challenging, but I found it difficult to understand the connection between the conceptual systems and ritual tr...

The rise of civilizations involved the dual emergence of economies that could produce surplus (“prosperity”) and states that could protect surplus (“security”). But the joint achievement of security and prosperity had to escape a paradox: prosperity attracts predation, and higher insecurity discourages the investments that create prosperity. We study the trade-offs facing a proto-state on its p...

This paper introduces wealth-dependent time preference into a simple model of endogenous growth. The model generates adjustment dynamics in line with the historical facts on savings and economic growth in Europe from the High Middle Ages to today. Along a virtuous cycle of development more wealth leads to more patience, which leads to more savings and even higher wealth. Savings rates and incom...

In this article the author first gives an introduction to his own approach to comparative theology (CT). After some introductory considerations, an outline of the idea and foundation of CT is given and is contrasted with traditional approaches to other religions; the methods, goals, and also the limits of CT are discussed; CT is differentiated from religious studies and the theology of religion...

AFRO-CUBAN THEOLOGY: RELIGION, RACE, CULTURE, AND THEOLOGY. By Michelle A. Gonzalez. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006. Pp. 208. $29.95. Gonzalez gives us a comprehensive and fresh interpretation of the interdisciplinary character of Christian theology in this wonderful and well-written monograph on AfroCuban theology. Undergirded by a strong feminist and theological outlook, Gonza...

The liberation-theology movement was partly inspired by the Second Vatican Council and the 1967 papal encyclical Populorum progressio. Its leading exponents include Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff of Brazil, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay. The liberationists have received encouragement from the Latin American bishops, especially in resolutions adopted at a 1968 conference in Medellin, Colombia; othe...

It is common for historians of medieval thought to note that the influence of Aristotle on Islamic philosophy was tinged with Neoplatonism, thanks to a text known as the "Theology of Aristotle." It is now known that the "Theology" is in fact not a work of Aristotle's but rather a paraphrase of parts of Plotinus's Enneads. Certainly, the misattribution of this work to Aristotle facilitated the s...

The rise of civilizations involved the dual emergence of economies that could produce surplus (“prosperity”) and states that could protect surplus (“security”). But the joint achievement of security and prosperity had to escape a paradox: prosperity attracts predation, and higher insecurity discourages the investments that create prosperity. We study the trade-offs facing a proto-state on its p...