Hebrew Scripture Theology

The preceding four lines are possibly not so well-known:

Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, He gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Pope’s poem is something in the vein of Qoheleth (= Ecclesiastes), then. And some might question just how much hope that really is!

Christian theology typically speaks about future hope in terms of “eschatology” -- last things. It has often been claimed that the writers of the Hebrew Bible did not think in these categories, and that the “future” was not some apocaplyptic aeon, but next week, or next year, or (extreme!) the next generation.

But the OT does speak often of “hope”, so what kind of hope does it have in mind? and how does this understanding of hope impinge on the formulations of hope in Christian theology, shaped as it is by the “gospel”?

Of these things, and more, we shall speak on Monday.

DjR