Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One common trope which is regularly invoked in current debates about the defensibility versus the danger of Christian engagement with critical theories (or, species of Critical Theory) is the idea of “ eating the meat but spitting out the bones .” Usually not far behind is a nod to the…
I am writing about the book of Proverbs in the Bible and “Eschatology.” I don’t refer only to the end of time, or “last things” that will happen in history before it ends as we know it. I am referring to all times of God’s judgment wherein He ends an…
“Unity” is the word of the day. In his inaugural address, Joe Biden invoked St. Augustine to inspire Americans to come together around certain shared values. As others have recently argued, Biden misreads Augustine in important ways. My argument here is that if we seek political unity and civic health…
This is part two of a series which began here ( The Half Shekel Temple Tax ) in which I answer back, hoping not to rebut but to glorify, some observations Peter Leithart made in a thought-provoking piece about the Temple Tax as atonement ( Atonement Money ). Adding economic…
It is now commonplace to characterize Wokeness (or “ Wokeism ”) as a religion , or at least religion-like . What I would like to explore is an elaboration on this emergent consensus, supplementing it with some theological analysis. Wokeness, I propose, is a form of post-Protestant neopaganism. It resembles…
Science Fiction movies often retell old stories and myths with greater impact for modern people. A being from another world or a technologically advanced human can embody an ancient god or demon and viewers are suddenly unwittingly enthralled by Ur tales that emerged from hundreds of years of human experience.…
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Richard Hays proposes the follow explanation of the title “faithful witness,” applied to Jesus in Revelation 1:5 ( Revelation and the Politics of Apocalyptic Interpretation , 78-79): “‘the testimony of Jesus’ must include the memory or message of Jesus’ own faithful suffering and death. This is suggested first of all…
Who is the one who “is, was, and coming”? In Revelation 1:4, it’s the Father. In verse 8, it seems to be the Triune God. Who is “Alpha and Omega”? In Revelation 1:8, it’s the Triune God. In 22:13, it’s Jesus. As Joseph Mangina has put it, John indicates that…
Revelation 1 describes Jesus with three titles: faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. Revelation 1 describes Jesus work with another triad: He loved us, loosed us from our sins, made us a kingdom of priests. The two triads match: Jesus loves us as…
In a previous post , I noted how the testimony of John the Seer parallels the testimony of John the Baptist. But there’s more to it. There’s something structural going on. In that post, part of my evidence was the unusual (though not unique) doubling of martur - words in…
In an essay in the Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora , Edrel Arie explains the dramatic effects of the fall of the second temple on Jews outside Judea. “Diaspora communities naturally vacillate between the desire to preserve all three: their unique identity, their connection to their cultural center, and their…
More specifically, what’s in Noah’s name? Much, says Michael Morales in The Tabernacle Pre-Figured (164-7). “The keys words of [Genesis] 6.5-8 form a paranomastic allusion to the name of Noah ( nch ): ‘regretted’ ( nacham ) 6.6, 7 (which meaning is contrasted to its use in 5.29 as ‘relief,…
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