Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I mentioned last month ( BH 82) in my essay "Like a Dove" that Genesis 8 is a recapitulation of Genesis 1. Let me explicate that assertion here. Of course, the world after the Flood is a new creation, so we may expect a recapitulation of the first creation. It…
The book of Esther is one of the most neglected of the books of the Bible. To be sure, sermons are preached on it, and commentaries have occasionally been written on it, but almost without exception Esther has been interpreted in isolation from the rest of Biblical history, chronology, and…
Dear Mr. ______, . . . Here is how I look at the geocentricity question. Since I don’t recall what I wrote you before, I may be repeating some things. 1. The Bible does not teach it. Biblical passages used to support the idea are being misinterpreted. My original paper…
Answer 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is often taken as a magnificent answer to the question, "What is God?" It reads: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." Presbyterians are fond of praising this statement, preaching on it,…
The gospels tell us that at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him "in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22 & parallels). Biblically sensitive commentators have associated this event with three Old Testament parallels: (1) the hovering of the Spirit over the creation in Genesis 1:2; (2) the…
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (John 8:6) The story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) has been part of the canonical Christian Bible from its earliest…
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Charles Simic laments the decline of educational standards: “An educated, well-informed population, the kind that a functioning democracy requires, would be difficult to lie to, and could not be led by the nose by the various vested interests running amok in this country. Most of our politicians and their political…
Critical scholarship has made hash of Leviticus. Scholars try to understand the rituals of “P” and “H” without much consideration of the narrative of division, death-sleep, and union that is the creation of Eve. Even the story of Abraham and Isaac is often put to the side as an irrelevancy,…
Darrin Belousek argues in Atonement, Justice, and Peace that “penal substitution is inadequate to explain the textual evidence concerning the several rituals of atonement-making” (177). He’s right. Sin offerings were done in cases where sin is not at issue. Following Jacob Milgrom and others, he points out that the rites…
In his Trinity House lectures on liturgical theology, Jeff Meyers called attention to the anti-liturgy of Genesis 3. Yahweh shows up in glory, meets Adam and Eve, gives a little sermon, kills animals to make skin tunics. The finale is not happy: Adam and Eve are excluded from the garden.…
When the Lamb appears in heaven, the angels begin singing a new song (Revelation 5:9). What’s new about it? Why a new song? The phrase “new song” is used six times in Psalms (33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; 149:1), and once in Isaiah (42:10). The position of these Psalms in…
Austin Stewart of Iowa State may have designed a way to fool chickens into believing they are free range. “Second Livestock” offers “a free-range world wherein chickens stuck in tiny cages in factories would be able to, at least mentally, live out their lives wandering an endless field.” We have…
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