Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Theophanic revelation is historically progressive, or eschatological, in character. First of all, in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit appeared inside the creation, sent by the Father. After the creation of man, the Spirit worked and works with humanity to bring us to maturity, from Daughter to Bride to fruitful Mother. He…
On the eighth day of the rite of "filling the hand," Aaron began his service at the altar. His first offering was a "calf" (Heb. `egel ), which served as a purification offering for himself and (apparently) his household (Leviticus 9:2, 8). This is striking for a couple of reasons.…
One of the distinctive items of the high priest’s clothing was the "golden plate" inscribed with the words "Holy to Yahweh" (Exodus 28:36-38). The word translated as "plate" is tsits , which literally means "flower." The verbal and noun forms are both used in Numbers 17:8, which describes Aaron’s rod…
The square, rectangle, and cross shapes appear all over the sanctuaries God reveals in the Bible: Tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, Ezekiel’s Temple, New Jerusalem. One thing that can be said right away about these designs, and the occasional perfect circle (the lavers), is that they do not occur in nature. They…
"For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). Some reflections on Jonah’s Big Fish have led to the following essay. Let me…
Citing Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20, James Jordan has written that "the name of God in use among the nations was God Most High’" (Hebrew, `el `elyon ; in Through New Eyes , p. 176). In addition to Melchizedek, one could cite the example of Balaam, who invokes the Lord both…
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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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