Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states: We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society: a nod, a handshake,…
Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato , virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and "presto!" the sacraments confer grace.…
When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do…
Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus…
Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the…
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In his book on Dogma and Preaching , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger reflected on the value of Christian festivity: “A Christian feast . . . means that the human person leaves the world of calculation and determinisms in which everyday life snares him, and that he focuses his being on the…
“I along am not able to carry all this people,” Moses says when Israel complains about hunger in the wilderness. “If You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once” (Numbers 11:14-15). Yahweh responds by ordered Moses to gather 70 men from the people, on whom…
Jeff Menne argues that the films of Francis Ford Coppola are films about the business of film, and specifically about Francis Ford Coppola’s place in that business. The film industry that Coppola first entered, Menne argues, is a classic example of “Fordism,” of the mechanization and routinization of work. For…
A study from the Columbia Business School has discovered that “umpires grant a larger and more generous strike zone to All-Star pitchers, and were also less likely to miss pitches that were in the official strike zone for these pitchers.” The research reviewed 800,000 pitches from 2008-2009, comparing them to…
Jacob’s firstborn is Reuben, but he doesn’t become the preeminent son of Jacob because he takes his father’s concubine. Neither do the next two, Simeon and Levi, because they slaughter the men of the city of Shechem. It’s the fourth, Judah, who becomes the chief among his brothers. The same…
In his recent Trinity House lectures on Genesis, James Jordan argues that the sons of God (that is, the faithful line of Seth) are attracted to the “good” daughters of men (women from Cain’s line) not because of their beauty but because of the social and cultural advantages of allying…
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