Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One of the major themes of the book of Acts is that Christ’s servants follow in His footsteps. For instance, if we compare the lives of Jesus and Paul, we find that each engaged in several years of travelling and preaching. Each set his face toward Jerusalem. In each case…
(This continues a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in earlier posts. You can click on the category, "Biblical Chronology," to see the previous posts. Was Ahab at Qarqar? Allis writes: "According to his Monolith Inscription, Shalmaneser III, in his sixth year (854 B.C.) made an expedition to…
I am not infrequently asked for advice on how to implement the kinds of things I’ve discussed in Rite Reasons and in my book The Sociology of the Church. To that end I’m providing in this essay some nuts and bolts that grow out of more than ten years of…
The first commandment given in the Levitical sacrificial legislation has to do with the animals appropriate to sacrifice: "When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of cattle ( behemah ), from the herd or the flock" (Lev. 1:2). Cattle alone were…
In the first week of November, the voters of the state of Washington were asked to approve or disapprove physician-assisted suicide. This has led to a good deal of comment on the issue of euthanasia in the press, and provokes the following reflections. 1. From a social policy standpoint, the…
We come this month to one of the most pernicious problems in the reconstruction of Ancient Near Eastern chronology, the problem of the Assyrian King Lists. We cannot proceed further with our survey of the chronology of the kings of Israel until we remove this roadblock from our path. We…
Showing page 292 of 309
Showing page 2 of 43
Most of the Beatitudes in Matthew are stated in third person. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” ” They shall be comforted,” ” they shall inherit the earth,” ” they shall be called the sons of God.” At the end, Jesus changes the…
One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Ricoeur’s discussion, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…
John Rist offers some important insights into Augustine’s view of time. He notes, as many commentators do, that Augustine is not aiming to provide a definition of time but to answer the question of how time can be measured. The dilemma is: If the past no longer is, and the…
In a 1957 essay in Man and Time , Gilles Quispel claims that Augustine’s views of time have been extracted from the “great struggle between a cyclical and a historical view of the world, between archaism and Christianity,” and therefore have been misunderstood. Augustine “comes to grips with the Neoplatonists…
Augustine argues in Confessions that time is not reducible to the movement of the celestial bodies. Aristotle agreed; but, as Ricoeur points out, the arguments that Augustine used departed radically from Aristotle. First, if the sun and stars stopped moving, and yet a potter’s wheel continued to move, time would…
Augustine argues in Confessions that time is not reducible to the movement of the celestial bodies. Aristotle agreed; but, as Ricoeur points out, the arguments that Augustine used departed radically from Aristotle. First, if the sun and stars stopped moving, and yet a potter’s wheel continued to move, time would…
Showing page 1638 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
