Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Figure: Literary structure of the Garden narrative The Garden narrative describes God forming the adam , resting him in his presence, then provisioning for his appetites of food, vocation, and mate. It continues to describe a snake, the introduction of death, and humanity's expulsion from the garden. The pages of…
I’ve spent the last few years studying the theology of St. Irenaeus (d. circ. 200ad). In particular, I’ve been gripped by the way that Irenaeus consistently resisted the anti-body emphasis that emerged in later Christian theology. His eschatology is remarkably focused on the resurrection of the body, and the renewal…
Details of Jesus in Exodus 1:22-2:25 Although there are a great many Christ-types in the Old Testament, it is hard to overplay the obviousness of some that seem to necessarily rise to the top before others. One of these is Isaac, with his near sacrifice by his own father after…
What can we say about Cain's wicked sanctuary-city of Enoch? First that it was built with a brother's blood as its cornerstone. The Church is also built such, for Jesus was the younger brother of the whole Adamic race, slain by that company of older brothers because they hated Him.…
In Genesis 2:9 the ground brought forth trees good for food, delightful to view, and in two cases, life-giving or rule-bestowing. Adam, made of the ground (2:7), would by implication bring forth new trees, and thus trees and plants are among the symbols for human beings throughout the Bible. The…
One of the must fundamental teachings of the Bible and of the Christian religion is that man does not have life in himself. Man must get life from outside of himself, in order to maintain his life. The way this is done is through eating and drinking. Apart from life,…
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A heavenly voice (Revelation 18:4) tells the saints to flee Babylon because her sins have “piled” to heaven (v. 5). That translation is questionable. The verb kollao means to “cling,” as a marriage man clings to his wife (Matthew 19:5; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:16-17; Genesis 2:24, LXX) or as dust…
Revelation 18:6 is made of two chiastic sentences that double back on each other. A. Pay B. her B'. as also she A'. paid. And: A. Double double according to her works B. in the cup C. she mixed C'. mix B'. her A'. double. Verse 7 says that she…
The opening description of Babylon in Revelation 18 suggests a city depopulated and repopulated. The people have been moved out, and in their place it has been infested with impurity. There are four categories of new inhabitants: demons and unclean spirits, unclean and abominable birds, and they are divided into…
Christian Faith , Brian Gerrish's new dogmatics, is well named, echoing as it does Schleiermacher's classic text. Gerrish is Schleiermachian in many ways, not least in his repetition of what has become, after Barth, one of Schleiermacher's most notorious gestures: His placement of the doctrine of the Trinity at the…
“Memory is the sine qua non of the creation of meaning,” writes Nicholae Babuts in his Literature and the Metaphoric Universe in the Mind . “Human beings are capable of interpreting the world because they remember not only the moments that have just elapsed, but also events that have taken…
In her contribution to Medieval Exegesis & Religious Difference , Nina Caputo analyzes Nahmanides' interpretation of the sons of God/daughters of men passage in Genesis 6. The notion that the passage was about angelic intercourse with humans was already current, but Nahmanides rejected it. He wrote, “The correct interpretation in…
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