Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
There is no question about the fact that the book of Deuteronomy is full of literary allusion. But there is a serious problem, even a paradox, of understanding how that allusion works. To begin with, if we assume that Deuteronomy was written by Moses — with some editorial emendations added…
Genesis and Genetics in Blade Runner 2049 The power of science fiction, and what’s positive about it, is that you’re able to experience the worst-case scenario without actually having to live it. (Actor Ryan Gosling, who plays Officer “K”) (Warning: The following analysis contains spoilers for both Blade Runner films.)…
The battle of Gog and Magog is found in Ezekiel 38-39. My purpose in this brief essay is to propound an explanation for this passage that I have not encountered in any of my commentaries, but that makes more sense to me than any other. I offer it here in…
I. Varlam Shalamov in Kolyma Tales describes his experience of the Gulag, where he spent more than a dozen of years. In a story titled The Life of Engineer Kipreev Shalamov reflects on the theme of hope in the life of a prisoner: “Hope always shackles the convict. Hope is…
Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…
And he said to me, "What do you see?" And I answered, "I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits" (Zechariah 5:2). Immediately following his vision of the outpouring of the Spirit upon the restoration community (4:1-14), Zechariah saw a flying scroll. The…
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The notion that the Democrats would select Hillary Clinton as their candidate has always seemed suicidal to me. Why run a candidate who immediately alienates a large proportion of the voting population? Bill Clinton’s prominence in the race makes Hillary’s candidacy seem all the more suicidal. His legacy as President…
Patterson provides a neat summary of three popular theories of festive comedy. All attempt to locate the play socially, in some setting of festivity. First, some suggest that Shakespeare paid a compliment to Elizabeth since she was in the original audience, an audience for a noble wedding, alluded to in…
A historicist angle comes out in Patterson’s discussion of the passage in 2.1.155-64, where Theseus describes the origin of the flower that Puck squeezes into the eyes of the lovers. Since the late 19 th century, critics have seen here a veiled reference to Elizabeth, who escaped Cupid’s arrow and…
In an essay on MSND entitled “Bottom’s Up: Festive Theory,” Annabel Patterson lays a historicist treatment of the play that relies in equal parts on Barber’s theory of festive comedy, Victor Turner’s studies of ritual, and Bakhtin’s theory of comedy and subversion. Here are some notes on her main themes:…
In his recent commentary on Daniel, Jim Jordan notes that the goat of Alexandrian Egypt (Daniel 8) is something new in Israel’s history - a power coming from the West: “Israel has always been the west-most power, with the Mediterranean Sea at her edge. All previous history has been involved…
Bakhtin wrote that laughter “liberated, to a certain extent, from censorship, oppression, and from the stake. But . . . laughter is essentially not an external but an interior form of truth . . . . Laughter liberates not only from exterior censorship but first of all from the great…
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