Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Should anthropological categories and tools be applied to Judaism? Seems a narrow and academic question, of interest to maybe ten people on the planet. It's one of the many virtues of Howard Eilberg-Schwartz's 1990 The Savage In Judaism to show that the question is a central one in the origins…
Christians are often accused of being obsessed with sexual sin. Why can't two people, of whatever sex, do whatever they please in the enclosure of their own room? Who is hurt if a guy wants to get off looking at tantalizing pictures and videos on his computer? What's the big…
“No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house” (Mark 3:27 NKJV). Much commentary on the Revelation seems oblivious to its allusions to the Pentateuch (although there are many that do enlighten us…
Leigh M. Trevaskis's 2011 monograph, Holiness, Ethics and Ritual in Leviticus , is an outstanding contribution to the study of Leviticus. His main thesis is directed at the world of Old Testament scholarship, in which there is a consensus that the ritual laws of Leviticus 1-16 come from a school…
Richard Ounsworth begins his Joshua Typology in the New Testament with an excellent discussion of what he calls "ontological" typology, which he handily summarizes in four points. Typology involves "correspondences between real historical events, personalities, institutions, etc. described in scripture," a correspondence that is discerned (not created) by the reader…
Baylor University Press is sponsoring a reception to celebrate the official release of Peter Leithart's Gratitude: An Intellectual History . The reception will be held at the First Things offices in Manhattan on Thursday, March 6, at 6 PM. For more details, click here .
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Does the intention of the author determine the sense? There are problems with saying Yes, particularly when “intention” is assumed to be the mental state of the author, which is unrecoverable. There are also problems with saying No, because that seems to introduce (as ED Hirsch argues) a hermeneutical free-for-all.…
In an article in Theology Today (1980), David Steinmetz quotes Benjamin’s Jowett’s essay on the interpretation of Scripture (1859), which insists on a single meaning in a text - the meaning intended by the author and understood by the original audience. Steinmetz admits that critical scholarship has moved on since…
Dahood takes “righteous” in Psalm 118:15, 19 as “victory.” The joyful shouting is heard from the tents of the victorious, and the gates are the gates of victory. He cites Isaiah 41:2 and 49:24 as other texts where this nuance of ZDK comes to the fore. The meaning could be:…
More notes, taken from or inspired by Michael Dahood’s Anchor Bible commentary. 1) Dahood makes good sense of the entire Psalm by assuming that it moves from a place of battle and victory (vv. 5-14), to the victory celebration in the tents of the war camp (vv. 15-18), and then…
With his usual critical insight, Auden captured Austen’s knowingness in a poem about Byron: You could not shock her more than she shocks me; Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass. It makes me most uncomfortable to see An English spinster of the middle class Describe the amorous effects of…
Gregory the Great again: “he that treats of sacred writ should follow the way of a river, for if a river, as it flows along its channel, meets with open valleys on its side, into these it immediately turns the course of its current, and when they are copiously supplised,…
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