The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness What the Old and New Testaments Teach Us about the Good Life

by Strawn, Brent A.

• ISBN13: 9780199795741
• ISBN10: 0199795746
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-10-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Scholars of the social sciences have devoted more and more attention of late to the concept of human happiness, mainly from sociological and psychological perspectives. This volume, which includes essays from scholars of the New Testament, the Old Testament, systematic theology, practical theology, and counseling psychology, poses a new and exciting question: what is happiness according to the Bible? Informed by developments in positive psychology, The Bible and the Pursuit of Happiness explores representations of happiness throughout the Bible and demonstrates the ways in which these representations affect both religious and secular understandings of happiness. In addition to the twelve essays, the book contains a framing introduction and epilogue, as well as an appendix of all the terms used in reference to happiness in the Bible. The resulting volume, the first of its kind, is a highly useful and remarkably comprehensive resource for the study of happiness in the Bible and beyond.

Author Biography

Brent A. Strawn is Associate Professor of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology and Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University, where he is also affiliated with the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies and is a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Contributors	p. xi
List of Abbreviations	p. xiii
Introduction: The Bible and … Happiness?	p. 3
Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Introduction to Pare I	p. 29
God, Creation, and the Pursuit of Happiness	p. 33
Is There Happiness in the Torah?	p. 57
A Happy Blend: IsaiahÆs Vision of Happiness (and Beyond)	p. 75
Happiness and Its Discontents in the Psalms	p. 95
Positive Psychology and Ancient Israelite Wisdom	p. 117
New Testament
Introduction to Part II	p. 137
The Beatitudes: Happiness and the Kingdom of God	p. 141
"We Had to Celebrate and Rejoice!" Happiness in the Topsy-Turvy World of Luke-Acts	p. 169
"I Have Learned to Be Content?": Happiness According to St. Paul	p. 187
Finding Happiness in Apocalyptic Literature	p. 203
Beyond the Bible: Continuing the Conversation into Other Disciplines
Introduction to Part III	p. 225
The Necessity of Divine Happiness: A Response from Systematic Theology	p. 229
A Constructed Happiness: A Response from Practical Theology	p. 249
The Transformation of Happiness: A Response from Counseling Psychology	p. 263
Epilogue: The Triumph of Life: Towards a Biblical Theology of Happiness	p. 287
Appendix: A Biblical Lexicon of Happiness	p. 323
Bibliography	p. 371
Index of Biblical and Other Ancient Sources	p. 405
Index of Modern Authors	p. 423
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