Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18, 19: Latter Prophets and the Writings John 18 and 19 record the arrest, trial, torture, and death of Jesus as laid out in detail in Isaiah 53. After the Roman soldier pierces Jesus’ side, John quotes Zechariah: “They shall look at him whom they pierced” (Zech 12:10). In…
John 12.12 – John 17: Latter Prophets In the Hebrew Scriptures, Kings is followed by the Latter Prophets. John 12:15 quotes Zechariah 9:9 as having prophesied Jesus’ triumphal entry: “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” [1] N.T. Wright…
John 6.16-70: Joshua The book of Joshua documents the nation of Israel entering the Promised Land. Consider the order of events: (1) Israel is still receiving the daily miracle of manna; (2) Israel miraculously crosses the Jordan on dry foot; (3) The day after Passover , Israel eats produce of…
Since my educational and professional training have revolved around story and narrative structure, I approach John’s Gospel from a literary and narrative perspective. In doing so, I have noticed structural story patterns and followed them where they seem to lead: the Gospel of John parallels the ordering of the books…
The Mt. Sinai Hospital was neolithic on the black hill of Hollow, New Hampshire. Winter dampened the trees and the wind bit at the sparse branches, the sidewalks and stairs were perilous with soggy leaves, and the dim yellow light cast a pallor upon the milky stone building. Ambling inside…
The Revelation can only be understood in the light of Old Testament symbols and sequences. The same is true of the epistle of Jude, which serves as a blistering hors d’oeuvre to John’s fiery feast. Possibly written by the apostle Judas Thaddaeus (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22), the epistle…
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It is well known that Greeks rarely offered holocaust sacrifices - sacrifices in which the entire animal is offered to the gods by being consumed in the fire. the most common sacrifice was the thysia , which always culminated with a meal. Alongside the rare holocausts were the equally rare…
When I spot an essay entitled “The Secret Auden,” I get nervous. When it’s in the New York Review of Books , I get nervouser. Edward Mendelson’s recent piece on Auden does refer to Auden’s homosexuality, but the focus of the piece is elsewhere: Auden’s dirty little secret is that…
Is the olah , the “whole burnt offering,” a “pure gift, as Moshe Halbertal has it in On Sacrifice (14)? It seems so: The entire animal is burned, no meat remains for the worshiper, there is no evident benefit given in return for the total devotion of an animal to…
Blood atones. That’s rooted in the created fact that life is in the blood, but in the Bible this doesn’t mean that blood is a kind of magical moral detergent. How then can it atone? It atones because God has “given” it for atonement: “I have given [blood] to you…
Stephen A. Geller offers an intriguing reading of the day of atonement rituals. He points out that, for all the attention given to the scapegoat, one of the unique features of this day’s rites, it is not said that the scapegoat atones for sin. What puts the kafar into Yom…
Why, Stephen A. Geller asks, does “P” consider blood a necessary agent for achieving forgiveness and the re-creation that is atonement? He answers by noting the sequence of Leviticus 16-17, which moves from the bloody cleansing and reestablishment of the sanctuary to the command that butchering be done in the…
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