Earth Story in the New Testament

The "Earth Bible" is an international project, including volumes on ecojustice readings of major sections of the Bible. The basic aims of the Earth Bible project are: to develop ecojustice principles appropriate to an Earth hermeneutic for interpreting the Bible and for promoting justice and healing for Earth; to publish these interpretations as contributions to the current debate on ecology, ecoethics and ecotheology; to provide a responsible forum within which the suppressed voice of Earth may be heard and impulses for healing Earth may be generated. The project explores text and tradition from the perspective of Earth, employing a set of ecojustice principles developed in consultation with ecologists, suspecting that the text and/or its interpreters may be anthropocentric and not geocentric, but searching to retrieve alternative traditions that hear the voice of Earth and value Earth as more than a human instrument. The lead article in Volume V is a reflection in responses to the ecojustice principles employed in the hermeneutic of the project. Several articles offer insights into New Testament texts that seem to devalue Earth in favour of heaven. The final article by Barbara Rossing challenges the popular apocalyptic notion that in the new age Earth will be terminated. A feature of this volume is a dialogue between Norman Habel, who argues that John One seems to devalue Earth, and two respondents, Elaine Wainwright and Vicky Balabanski (who is coeditor of this volume with Norman Habel). 1