Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Some readers of my essay, “ Strange and Glorious New Rites ,” have written to object that I have strained a gnat and swallowed a camel. I have strained out the gnat of a possible link to the memorial bread of the minchah (Lev. 2), while overlooking the camel that…
In his lectures on Comparative Religion, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy points to five fundamental gods that were over ancient man and still can dominate us today, and which must be respected. When we sin, we respect these gods more than we respect the Creator, disobeying the First Word: “You will have no…
A. Israel’s failure to hold land against the Canaanites. Progressive compromise, leading to judgment. 1:1–2:5. B. Israel’s idolatry, the cycle of judges, and war as God’s chastisement. 2:6–3:6. C. Northern Gentiles (Mesopotamia), and Othniel. 3:7-11. D. Lot: Moab, and Ehud. 3:12-13. E. Minor judge: Shamgar. 3:31. F. Canaanites opposed. Women…
The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, “what fate awaits them?” They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time…
Paul contends that with the death of Christ on the Cross, there was an overcoming of the Principalities and the Powers (Col. 2:15). A great deal has been written on this subject over the last 60 years. What was for a long time either ignored, or regarded by liberal scholars…
One of the odd customs that has arisen in the 20th century is that many evangelical churches warp the rites of the Lord’s Supper by insisting that everyone wait so that they eat and drink together. Supposedly this is to emphasize the unity of the Church. This practice has no…
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James Kugel lays out four assumptions about Scripture shared by Bible readers in the early centuries of the church ( Traditions of the Bible , 15-19): First, “the Bible is a fundamentally cryptic document. That is, all interpreters are fond of maintaining that although Scripture may appear to be saying…
In a 2005 New Yorker piece , David Remnick surveyed the efforts to bring Dostoevsky and Tolstoy into English. For decades, the field was dominated by the translations of Constance Garnett. They were far from universally liked. Nabokov “ranks Tolstoy at the top of all Russian prose writers and Anna…
Yahweh descended from Sinai to take up residence in the tabernacle, to make His home in the midst of His people. Though access to His house was limited, He intended the tabernacle to be a house of hospitality. In the house were a table of showbread for food, a lampstand…
In the March 2016 print edition of First Things , RR Reno explains the limits of “critical thinking,” often offered as “an intellectual cure-all for what limits our desire to know.” Reno acknowledges that “The critical strategy for renewing the intellectual life can seem exactly the right way to tear…
I admit a bias at the outset: In 20008, the US elected a President younger than I, and I now find myself older than many leaders in DC, older than many of the writers, columnists and scholars that I learn from. It's hard to adjust to the fact that “old”…
Early Christians expended huge amounts of energy and intellectual subtlety in working out the implications of the gospel for their understanding of God and of Jesus. “Trinity” and “Christology” were the theological monuments of the patristic era. John MacIntyre ( Shape of Soteriology ) points out that we find nothing…
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