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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Hermeneutics

The Complexity of Biblical Allusion

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…

by Ralph Allan SmithJanuary 23, 2018
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Culture

The Artificial Resurrection

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.)…

by Mike BullJanuary 18, 2018
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Biblical Studies

The Battle of Gog and Magog

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…

by James B. JordanJanuary 16, 2018
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Deep Hope

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…

by Bogumil JarmulakJanuary 11, 2018
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Biblical Theology

Abram’s 318 Men

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…

by James B. JordanJanuary 9, 2018
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Biblical Studies

The Flying Scroll

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…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 4, 2018

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Absenteeism

N ineteenth-century radical Henry Hunt was once offered a clerical post worth a thousand pounds a year. His duties? Nothing “for six days out of seven but to hunt, shoot, and fish by day, and play cards, talk scandal with the old maids of the parish, and win the money…

July 21, 2017

Painter of Passion

R aphael is, we might think, a painter of abstract and ethereal scenes. Andrew Butterfield says in a review of a recent showing of Raphael's drawings that this impression is due to our lack of direct exposure to Raphael's work. Looked at up close, Raphael's drawings reveal an artist obsessed…

July 21, 2017

Austen's Defects?

J ane Austen has been in the news this week, what with the 200th anniversary of her death on July 18, 1817. To mark the day, the TLS republished a 1913 review of an Austen biography by Virginia Woolf. Woolf has some very insightful things to say about Austen, but…

July 21, 2017

Cormac McCarthy's Gnosticism

A TLS review of two books of the Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy notes the hints of holiness in his novels: Often in his work . . . there are residual glimmers of the numinous. McCarthy, who was raised a Roman Catholic, is often read as an unconventional religious writer,…

July 21, 2017

Misrepresenting Moltmann?

I n his opening essay in Christian Dogmatics , co-editor Mike Allen quotes George Hunsinger's claim that Jurgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Eberhard Jungel are all guilty of historicizing eternity and subjecting it to eschatology. They all start from what Allen calls a “hard” or “ontological” interpretation of Rahner's Rule…

July 21, 2017

Coleridge on Utilitarianism

R esponding to a piece defending utilitarianism by one O. P. Q. in the Morning Chronicle, Coleridge writes : He is for the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number, and for the longest possible time! So am I; so are you, and every one of us, I will…

July 21, 2017

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