Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In our first essay we looked at Kline’s flawed exegesis of Genesis 2:5 as it relates to Day 3 of creation. Now we turn to Kline’s new argument against a chronological reading of Genesis 1, as found, again, in "Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony," Perspectives on Science and…
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…
Once upon a time, Jeff Meyers and Tony Rollins–old friends who had not seen each other for a few years–met in the parking lot of a neighborhood church. They were dropping off their pre-school children at the church for Mother’s Day Out. They were such conscientious and helpful fathers. As…
Years ago, when I was at the briefly-existing Geneva Divinity School, I taught a course in the Apocrypha. One thing that struck me at that time is that two of the stories are almost certainly religious allegories (as well as moral tales): Judith and Susanna. Since "Susanna" means "Lily," this…
Peter’s essay inspires me to write up some similar thoughts about the flower of the field. Rightly does Peter associate the almond with Yahweh’s garden, because the Garden of Eden is symbolically positioned as parallel to the Holy Place of the Tabernacle and Temple. To wit: Since Aaron’s rod blossomed…
We have had occasion to discuss the views of Meredith G. Kline previously in these newsletters, and now it is time to do so again. Kline teaches at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and also at the Westminster Theological Seminaries (Philadelphia and San Diego). He is the author of some interesting insights…
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Noemie Emery gives a 14-point analysis of what Palin does for McCain over on the Weekly Standard web site. Number 14 is: “Counter-intuitively, makes the issue of Obama’s light resume more potent than ever. Her lack of experience is no more than his is. And he’s—to use a term from…
What is needed in biblical studies is something analogous to the classicism of French scholars like Vernant, Detienne, Vidal-Naquet, and their followers. They were carefully attentive to the literary riches of classical texts, but were at the same time anthropologists and cultural historians. I see a few moves in this…
After explaining the intrusive gaze of the Roman censor, Shardi asks whether the Romans created an ancient predecessor of Bentham’s panopticon, made famous by Foucault. She recognizes the analogies, but says that the “differences are perhaps more striking than the similarities.” First, in contrast to Bentham’s circular prison, the Roman…
Shadi Bartsch ( Mirror of the Self ) notes that the Romans sometimes regarded the wax death masks of their ancestor ( imagines ) to be their judges: “In his oration Pro Murena , for example, Cicero, as he tried to move the jurors to acquit a newly minted Roman…
Cicero advised his brother, “Take care to employ on every day men of every rank and order and age. For one can conjecture from those very numbers how much strength and opportunity you will have in the assembly . . . . A daily throng to lead you down to…
Medieval legends about Judas appear throughout Europe in many different languages. The standard story is remarkably similar to the story of Oedipus. As summarized by Paull Franklin Baum, the medieval Judas story normally was this: “Judas . . . was the son of Jewish parents living at Jerusalem: his father’s…
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