The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History

by Walter J. Ong

Book Overview

This provocative exploration of the nature and history of the word in some of its social, psychological, literary, phenomenological, and religious dimensions argues that the word is initially aural and in the last analysis always remains sound; it cannot be reduced to any other category. Father Ong contends that sound is essentially an event manifesting power and personal presence, and his descriptive analysis of the development of the media of verbal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300099738
• ISBN13: 9780300099737
• Release Date: September 1967
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 378 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Please make sure your trays are in the upright and locked...

This book is simply amazing. Walter Ong focuses on an epistemology of hearing, contra Plato. Simply amazing. If you want to know what covenantal epistemology is, and what it means to "hear" God in the person and work of Jesus Christ, then pick this book up and read it, pen in one hand, coffee in the other. There is a lot of good stuff here for anyone interested in Luther's theology as well, even though the author is a Jesuit. There is a lot here for Protestants to appreciate.