Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Whatever else the 2016 Presidential cycle has accomplished, it has brought the chasm between nationalism and globalism into sharp relief. Many see this divide as the issue of the campaign (Robert Merry) or of the century (Pat Buchanan). It seems to be a choice we have to make. Christians must…
Salvation is a gift. The righteousness of justification (Romans 5:17) and eternal life (Romans 6:23) are gifts freely offered. According to Risto Saarinen ( God and the Gift ), “God is directly called the giver 104 times [in Scripture], of which 42 are in John’s Gospel and John’s Letters. In…
In the last 40 odd years of studying the Bible, I have read more essays and commentaries on Deuteronomy 6:4 than I can recall. I have also more than twice changed my view on what should be the correct translation of Israel’s central confession. What is so complicated? After the…
Satan is currently bound from gathering the nations in kingly rebellion so that Jesus might gather them in priestly unity. Everything which Scripture records for us, no matter how mundane or mysterious, exists as part of a process of growth to maturity. This transformation is achieved through relationships established by…
God’s people are a missionary people, and this is not true only of the New Testament church. God called Abraham to bless the Gentiles through him, and one of Israel’s recurring sins was her failure to carry out this mission. Israel was supposed evoke praise from the Gentiles, but instead…
Are you ready for the New Year? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever He takes you this year? Are you read to follow Him into the garden? Are you ready to stay at His side to be arrested, interrogated, tortured, crucified, buried? Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever…
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In a recent PhD dissertation from Florida State, Margaret Armstrong traces the connections between the Oxford movement and Jane Harrison’s Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion . Harrison “practiced a wild, emotional brand of High Churchism and that its traces linger in her letters and her autobiography and further…
I reflect on the political potency of symbolism at Canon and Culture, the web site of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Klawans ( Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple ) is disturbed by the gap between studies of biblical purity and studies of sacrifice. Mary Douglas proposed that Levitical purity was not primitive, but systematic, symbolic, and socially functional. Even those who are unconvinced by her proposals has to take Levitical purity…
Klawans helpfully reminds us of the pre-preparations for sacrifice ( Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple ). To offer an animal, an Israelite has to have one, and it has to be unblemished. Worshipers begin by being shepherds and herdsmen, and they have to be careful ones. Careful like Yahweh: “Israel’s…
In his first book, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism , Jonathan Klawans explores the complex relations of sin and impurity in biblical law and later Jewish thought. He distinguishes between “ritual defilement” that arises from unavoidable natural processes and “moral defilement” that arises from sin. In Purity, Sacrifice, and…
In his Taboo , Fritz Steiner observed that the discovery of Polynesian taboo customs was a “Protestant discovery” (50). Admitting that this was a historical accident, he still thought it worth remarking, and thought it contained a clue to 19th-century obsessions with taboo: “The problem of taboo became extraordinarily prominent…
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