Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Failure of the Church Yet a third factor played an important role in this historical development, in addition to the imperial adoption of icons and the rise of the icons of the holy man. Brown writes: "The great Christian basilicas of the previous centuries tended to stand empty, except…
The three large patriarchal narratives of Genesis concern the three aspects of the cosmos: matter, space, and time. Over these three is man given dominion. Lucifer was originally appointed to train man in this dominion, but he chose to lead man into rebellion instead. Thus, the Angel of Yahweh replaced…
Part 6: Living in a Dying World (continued) The "Trivium" (continued) The five stages of education are simply the five stages of the covenant as God administers it in human life and history, and in the liturgy of covenant renewal: First, God announces Himself. "I am Yahweh Your God." He…
The following essay is tentative and exploratory, offered for your consideration. It seems to me that the ritual of the Ascension Offering (incorrectly translated as Burnt Offering) of Leviticus 1 is a symbolic recapitulation of Genesis 1, which thereby portrays the sacrificial ritual as way of moving from a fallen…
Just as the vast majority of evangelical Christians in America today are Arminian and Baptist, so the vast majority do not believe in a creation around 4000 BC. I don’t expect any of these three situations to change anytime soon. Powerful presuppositions are at work in all three instances, along…
The Iconoclastic Controversy Continuing Pagan Influence How did images creep in? To begin with, there was in the post-Constantinian Church a concerted effort on the part of the semi-pagans to interpret Christianity in essentially pantheistic terms. The heretics put God and man on a continuum of "being," so that God…
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A recent article in the widely read journal, Radiation Protection Dosimetry (150 [2012] 278-82) provides one more reason, as if one were needed, to grow a beard. The abstract reads: “A dosimetric technique has been employed to establish the amount of erythemal ultraviolet radiation (UVR) protection provided by facial hair…
After a series of exceedingly sensitive and profound meditations on Genesis 1-3, in which John Paul II highlights the contemporaneity and wisdom of Genesis, he suddenly turns into a nineteenth century liberal when he starts talking about sex in the Torah ( Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology…
I muse on the religion of sports underlying modern and ancient Olympics at http://www.firstthings.com/ this morning.
How did reciprocal economies become modern economies, dominated so thoroughly by the market? Hans van Wees ( Reciprocity in Ancient Greece , 48) says we don’t really know, and adds that “the introduction of money . . . turns out not to make as much difference as one might have…
In his contribution to Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (36-7), Hans van Wees asks whether a “reciprocal economy” is subject to the law of supply and demand. His answer is, Yes and No: “When initiating a reciprocal relationship, one might go where the goods one intends to give away are most…
Anthropologists claim that in “gift societies” objects exchanged never become the private property of the recipient. We know this even in our own society: We would never think to use a soup tureen from grandma to feed the cat. Gifts impose an obligation to honor the giver. Things bought do…
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