Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…
Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…
Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…
Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…
Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…
Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…
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Douglas Campbell responded briefly to my brief discussion of his critique of “justification” theory. In a fit of joie de guerre , I respond briefly. Campbell rebuts what he considers a “weak” argument in my post, namely, the claim that his decision to set out justification theory systematically and propositionally…
Peter Enns raises many of the standard objections to the Bible in The Bible Tells Me So . . . : Yahweh’s command to slaughter the Canaanites, contradictions in Scripture, historical errors and unscientific claims. His answers are pretty standard too. Christian don’t need to worry about God’s command to…
With a single line, Matt Zoller Seitz captures the quiet power of the Sundance TV series, Rectify , recently renewed for a third season: The show “never shouts when it can whisper.” The show’s principal character is Daniel Holden, recently released from 19 years on death row after the discovery…
Saul is presented to Israel as king by lot (1 Samuel 10). Samuel brings the tribes near, and the tribe of Benjamin is selected; then the Matrite clan within the tribe of Benjamin, and then Saul the son of Kish. We’ve seen this before. After the first, unsuccessful battle of…
Opening Heaven’s Floodgates , edited by Jason Silverman, is a wide-ranging collection of essays about the “Genesis flood narrative, its context, and reception.” The book includes detailed essays on the differing chronologies of the flood narrative in various ancient versions; comparative studies of Mesopotamian and Iranian myths; the use of…
Dwight Garner isn’t the first to wonder if the Swedish Academy’s commitment to honor “work of an idealistic tendency” has prevented it from rewarding some of the greatest writers of the past century: “Was it lofty Swedish idealism, as some have contended, that in part kept James Joyce, Virginia Woolf,…
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