Book 121

The epistemology of the mid-fourth-century Christian scholar in Persia, Aphrahat, presumes that the human mind and the task of biblical interpretation are caught up in a dynamic experience of Christian spiritual transformation. In short, for the Persian Sage, good Bible interpretation requires nothing less than the total person-inner and outer, in community and before God. In Aphrahat's Demonstrations, we encounter a scholar who not only presents this remarkably integrated set of ideals but is also an impressive practitioner of them.