Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The name of Harry Turtledove is well known to readers of fantasy and science fiction. Turtledove is an historian, and most of what he writes is in the "alternative history" genre. A fine collection of short stories, available in paperback, is his Agent of Byzantium . These stories are set…
In answer to a question, the following about the unicorn, a supposed "New Age" symbol: The unicorn, or monoceros (one-horn), was known around the ancient world. Some scholars believe it may have been the one-horned goat that is still bred today. Others think it may have originated in tales of…
3. A Brief Survey of Esther (continued from the previous issue) Haman told the king that "a certain people" were rebellious against him, and that Haman wanted to rid the king of their noxious presence. The king agreed, and the two sat down to a feast. This is the third…
It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…
2. The Setting of the Book of Esther (continued from previous issue) Astyages E. W. Faulstich presents his arguments in his book History, Harmony, The Exile & Return . 1 To understand it, we have to have some background. The Assyrians ruled the near east. Median king Cyaxeres decided to…
In my commentary on Judges, I demonstrated that Jephthah in his Spirit-led vow intended to offer to Yahweh the first person who greeted him from the doors of his house after the battle. Since it was a custom for the young women to come out dancing to greet the returning…
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God created two different kinds of land creatures, which are identified with two different sorts of names in the Old Testament. Wild animals are classified as “living things” ( chayyah ), while domesticated animals are classified as “cattle” ( behemah ). This is a division built into the original creation,…
At the beginning of Revelation 13, the dragon - Satan - goes to the seashore. He places himself in the same position as the Spirit at the beginning of creation, who hovered over the water and called up the land from the sea and the many other things from the…
In a 2009 First Things piece reprinted in It’s Not the End of the World: It’s Just the End of You , David P. Goldman explores how Western tonal music is able to capture higher orders of time and that evoke eternity. Drawing on Augustine’s account of time in terms…
One of the interesting findings of Patrick Fletcher’s Resurrection Realism , a study of Ratzinger’s Augustinian views on the resurrection, has to do with Ratzinger’s changing views of Platonism. Early on, Ratzinger saw Platonism as an enemy of Christian faith. He attempted to construct a “de-Platonized” eschatology that did not…
Francois Furet’s Lies, Passions & Illusions is a best-seller in France. The little book is Furet’s portion of a conversation-debate with Paul Ricouer. Ricouer put aside his edited version of the conversation when Furet died in 1997, but Furet’s portion was completed and is not published. Furet’s analysis of twentieth…
In his Prison Notebooks , the Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci rebuts the abstracted philosophizing of Bertrand Russell: “Russell says approximately this: ‘We cannot, without the existence of man on the earth, think of the existence of London or Edinburgh, but we can think of the existence of two points in…
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