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

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evangelists
Matthew

Dating Matthew, (Part 1)

When might the Gospel according to Matthew have been written? Of course, any answer can only be speculation, but that does not mean we are reduced to groundless opinion. In this series of articles I point the way to an approach different from the general consensus among scholars today which…

by Ralph Allan SmithNovember 22, 2016
hebrew-manuscript-3
Hermeneutics

Synopticity, (Part 2)

In my first essay on “synopticity” I offered a rather rough definition of the phenomenon and important, though not exhaustive examples. In this essay, I want to introduce broader aspects of the phenomenon of “synopticity.” The first example that I have in mind is conventional stories, stories of different historical…

by Ralph Allan SmithNovember 17, 2016
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Ascension

Brexit and the Binding of Satan, Part 4

Since the judgment of Babel was followed by the initiation of the circumcision, the impending end of the circumcision in AD70 explains the significance of the first century miracle of foreign tongues. Except for a few Aramaic “teasers” in the book of Daniel, the Word of God was monolingual and…

by Mike BullNovember 15, 2016
four-evangelists
Hermeneutics

Synopticity, (Part 1)

To the best of my knowledge “synopticity” is not a word used in theology or Biblical studies, but it seems an appropriate word to describe the kind of phenomena associated with the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three Gospels tell essentially the same story with significant — sometimes…

by Ralph Allan SmithNovember 10, 2016
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Humor

Learning to Laugh

Humor is a funny thing. It is altogether familiar yet also mysterious. What makes us laugh? Why do we find things funny? There are academic fields of study dedicated to discovering what makes things humorous. These academicians even have a journal entitled International Journal of Humor Research . No joke.…

by Bill SmithNovember 8, 2016
chaucer
Literature

Flawed Means of Grace: Liturgy in The Pardoner's Tale

Out of all the characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales , the Pardoner has been called the “one lost soul.” The pious Parson, who closes out the collection of tales with a sermon on the seven deadly sins and how a sinner can absolve himself of them, connects the…

by Christian LeithartNovember 3, 2016

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Sermon outline

INTRODUCTION Hope is a spring of human action. We do what we do because we hope to accomplish something by our actions, and when we are truly hopeless we do nothing at all. Scripture teaches us that we raise our children in hope, as well as in faith and love.…

November 20, 2007
Politics

Plato’s anti-democracy

Reviewing Malcolm Schofield’s Plato: Political Philosophy in the TLS, Jonathan Lear offers this superb precis of Plato’s politics: “For Plato, one cannot understand politics unless one grasps the nature and structure of human desire. Political scientists must be students of the human soul: for one cannot understand the problem of…

November 20, 2007
Politics

Plato’s anti-democracy

Reviewing Malcolm Schofield’s Plato: Political Philosophy in the TLS, Jonathan Lear offers this superb precis of Plato’s politics: “For Plato, one cannot understand politics unless one grasps the nature and structure of human desire. Political scientists must be students of the human soul: for one cannot understand the problem of…

November 20, 2007
History

Romantic form

Formalism seems a classical obsession, but Angela Leighton argues in her recent On Form that the key moment came with romanticism. Schiller said that in a beautiful poem “the content should do nothing, the form everything . . . . the real artistic secret of the master consists in his…

November 20, 2007
History

God and Gold

Walter Russell Mead’s recent God and Gold explores the uncanny success of Anglo-American power since the seventeenth century, what Mead calls “the biggest geopolitical story of modern times: the birth, rise, triumph, defence, and continuing grown of Anglo-American power despite continuing and always renewed opposition and conflict.” Since the late…

November 20, 2007
Philosophy

Immanentism and dualism

In the same article, Milbank argues that “dualism and hierarchy are . . . the secret heart of all immanentisms.” The argument is: In 18th and 19th century design arguments, God is “half-immanent” and interacts “on the same plane with what he influences.” This is a dualism between “the creative…

November 20, 2007

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