Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Building of the Temple Solomon began work on the Temple in the second month of his fourth year. This was the year 2993, a sabbath year. He finished in the eighth month of his eleventh year, the year 3000, also a sabbath. (1 Ki. 6:1, 38). This is said…
The Bible expresses its chronology not only in sequences of years, but also in sequences of sabbath years and jubilees. This enables us to make a cross-check of our chronology, and when we find apparent problems, to refine it. If our chronology is right, we should find some significant correlations…
Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative Sheffield, England: Almond Press, 1983. This volume is the ninth in the "Bible and Literature Series" under the general editorship of David M. Gunn. According to its author, who teaches Hebrew at the University of Maryland, the book is an effort to…
V. Propp’s classic work Morphology of the Folktale (University of Texas, 1968) argues that one of the basic structures of folk literature is "lack, lack liquidated." A king sets out to look for a wife, and the tale ends with a wedding. Often, the hero sets out on some business…
Luke’s gospel begins and ends in the temple. It opens with Gabriel’s annunciation to the priest Zacharias (whose name, appropriately, means "Yahweh remembers") of the coming of a forerunner. Zacharias is performing priestly service at the time. The book ends with the joyful worship of a new priesthood in the…
Last time we arrived at the year A.M. 3960 as the date for the inauguration of the New Creation through the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We also saw that this is most likely the year of Paul’s conversion. Fourteen years…
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There are strange doings in the Reformed world these days. One of the strangest I’ve come across recently are comments from one Reformed elder who complained that NT Wright’s views on justification were introducing a new Romanism. According to this writer, it is no defense of Wright to point out…
Since I’ve said some favorable things about Virginia Postrel’s The Substance of Style , I should mention Anne Hollander’s very smart review in the December 22 TNR . Hollander is, after all, far better qualified than I to speak on matters of taste and fashion. One of Hollander’s essential points…
James Wood has an intriguing and self-revealing review of new translations of Leon Battista Alberti’s Momus and Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly in the December 22 issue of The New Republic . He begins with a contrast between antique comedy, which is “comedy of correction” and “modern” comedy, which is…
Why music? Well, for instance: What I want my life to be is better expressed by a 2-minute segment the Canzona of Beethoven’s A minor string quartet than by any words I could ever speak or write, expressed all at once in multiple registers and nuances. To say it all…
Graham Ward, writing about the “displaced body of Jesus,” argues that “none of us has access to bodies as such, only to bodies that are mediated through the giving and receiving of signs.” To which I want to say, Hmmm. On the one hand, I want to agree that our…
The current issue of Semeia (#45) is devoted to “New Testament Masculinities,” and is a contribution to the growing academic study of masculinity. Jerome Neyrey has an interesting article here on Jesus’ masculinity in the gospel of Matthew. Two of his conclusions are particularly noteworthy: 1) “Matthew rarely locates [Jesus]…
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