Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
References to the Son of Man coming on the clouds occur five times in the Synoptic Gospels. Three times such expressions appear in the parallel accounts of the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:30; Mark 13:36; Luke 21:27). Then, in parallel accounts of Jesus’ trial before the leaders of Israel, such expressions…
Just what the difference is in the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New Testament is a question not so easily answered. The distinction is often said to be that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is on the believer, but in the New…
1. Introduction You should think of 1917 at church on Sunday. Why? Let me explain. There's one film every Oscar season which everyone seems to have watched—your parents, your colleagues, even your pastor. This year, it's 1917— Sam Mendes' WW1 epic following two British Tommies on a seemingly impossible quest…
This piece was originally part of the Bowyer response to the Theopolis series surrounding Professor McDermott’s essay, “Rethinking Israel.” For the sake of brevity, it was removed from the initial response, to be published as a standalone piece. As we’ve argued previously , we are strongly supportive of the right…
Richard Bauckham’s groundbreaking work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony , is profoundly insightful, but the message of the book is hampered by the presupposition of Marcan priority. Ironically the place where this assumption perhaps does its most damage is in Bauckham’s discussion of the apostle Matthew…
The Protestant Reformation was defined by certain clarifying disagreements between the medieval Church and those who came to be known as Protestant Reformers. Chief among these was the nature of justification: whether one was justified by works, or by faith and works, or—as Martin Luther contended—by faith alone. Now over…
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Philip Roth famously announced last year that he was quitting. Writing in the TLS , Adan Thirlwell suggests that what he’s actually doing is continuing his career in an inverted fashion. Thirlwell cites a 1984 interview with Hermione Lee, where Roth described his working method: “Making fake biography, false history,…
In an essay on Dostoevsky and evil in Between Religion and Rationality , Joseph Frank observes that Dostoevsky frequently leads readers into moral horrors, but his “unflinching explorations of evil” don’t leave readers paralyzed. How does that work? Frank traces Dostoevsky’s depiction of evil to his prison experience, recounted in…
In one of his late essays in Speech Genres , Bakhtin traces the secularization of literature to the solvent effects of irony: “Irony has penetrated all languages of modern times (especially French); it has penetrated into all words and forms . . . Irony is everywhere - from the minimal…
In a 1988 article in the Journal of Literature and Theology (2:1), Milbank sketches the contours of a “theology without substance.” Along the way, he offers a critique of Augustine’s signum-res distinction and the implied metaphysics. On the one hand, Augustine pours some of the foundations for a Christian linguistics…
Ronald Osborn’s Death Before the Fall is two books in one, as the subtitle suggests: “Biblical Literalism and the Problem of Animal Suffering.” Part of the book is a critique of “literalism,” especially as expressed in young-earth creationism, the other part is an exegetical defense of the notion that animal…
Jesus threatens to throw the self-appointed prophetess Jezebel onto a bed (Revelation 3:22). The threat carries multiple resonances. The original Jezebel died by being thrown from a window to the ground in front of conquering Jehu. Jesus is the new Jehu throwing Jezebel to her deathbed. It’s fitting that she’s…
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