I need help finding a very specific piece of Medieval literature...

by 29PilgrimsEditing

Little background: I'm an editor and currently editing a manuscript for a client of mine. The manuscript deals heavily with religion, namely Christianity, and the author is exploring the nature of the Christian god by bringing up contradictions, uncomfortable truths, etc.

I have a list of suggested reading for him so that he may develop his ideas more and have more credible sources so as to support his arguments better. I have a specific piece in mind that I want to suggest, but unfortunately I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it's called or even who the original author is.

Here is what I do remember:

  • Obviously Medieval. I'm sorry I cannot be more specific as the Medieval period spans ~1000 years :(

  • It addresses all the contradictions in the Christian Bible and asks them to be answered

  • The author's point wasn't to argue that Christianity is wrong, but that in order to take the Bible literally, then these contradictions must be answered

  • There are (I think) over 400 contradictions that the author brings up

I greatly apologize for being so utterly vague. With such little memory of details that I have about the piece, it's nearly impossible to find exactly what I'm looking for on the interwebs, so I'm hoping that someone here can help me out. Thank you in advance.

sunagainstgold

in order to take the Bible literally

This isn't really a medieval idea, FWIW--there's a "literal sense," but it doesn't mean what modern fundamentalists mean. (Which is also not literal, but...moving on.)

Presenting a contention, objections, and responses to the objection is the basic methodology of scholastic theology, so you've got a lot of options. However, there are a couple I think fit the bill more directly, since scholastic theologians like Thomas or Bonaventure resolved the contradictions to their own (or their teacher's, lol) satisfaction:

  • Peter Abelard, Sic et non? He deals with theological tradition, not the Bible, but lays out contradictory points as a dialectical/scholastic exercise. Abelard was also influential on:

  • Peter Lombard, Sententiae, which might be another possibility?