Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…
One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…
Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…
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In a 2002 article, Lester Little notes the biblical inspiration for Carolingian Benedictine monasticism: “In inspiration, thought patterns, and rhetoric, this liturgical monasticism shared in a culture that was deeply indebted to the Old Testament. Models for the duties and prerogatives of the religious were found in the instructions given…
Charles Eisenstein offers this arresting description of the divine attributes of money in modern culture ( Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition , xiii-xv): “The one thing on the planet most closely resembling the . . . conception of the divine is money. It is…
In his Forsaken: The Trinity and the Cross, and Why It Matters , Thomas H. McCall cites some alarming statements about the logic of atonement from evangelical theologians, who claim that there is a “strife of attributes” in God: “Gregory Boyd and Paul Eddy describe this position as one that…
According to most ancient myths, the origin of the creation is violent violent. It must be so. Reality as we know it is in constant motion, a realm of constant change. But antique religions are quests for a place of stability. To get to that “rock of ages,” change has…
In his outline of theology proper in Christian Dogmatics, Volume 1 , Jenson describes the “usual god” of ancient religion: “The usual God, whose eternity is persistence of the beginning, has as his very honor among us that in him we are secure against the threats of the future. Ancient…
In their classic study of The Cuisine of Sacrifice Among the Greeks (13), Detienne and Vernant describe how the distribution of meat from a sacrificed animal traces the boundaries and ranks of a social order: “The commensal meal begins with division. Two systems seem to compete, both in the carving…
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