Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One of the major themes of the book of Acts is that Christ’s servants follow in His footsteps. For instance, if we compare the lives of Jesus and Paul, we find that each engaged in several years of travelling and preaching. Each set his face toward Jerusalem. In each case…
(This continues a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in earlier posts. You can click on the category, "Biblical Chronology," to see the previous posts. Was Ahab at Qarqar? Allis writes: "According to his Monolith Inscription, Shalmaneser III, in his sixth year (854 B.C.) made an expedition to…
I am not infrequently asked for advice on how to implement the kinds of things I’ve discussed in Rite Reasons and in my book The Sociology of the Church. To that end I’m providing in this essay some nuts and bolts that grow out of more than ten years of…
The first commandment given in the Levitical sacrificial legislation has to do with the animals appropriate to sacrifice: "When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of cattle ( behemah ), from the herd or the flock" (Lev. 1:2). Cattle alone were…
In the first week of November, the voters of the state of Washington were asked to approve or disapprove physician-assisted suicide. This has led to a good deal of comment on the issue of euthanasia in the press, and provokes the following reflections. 1. From a social policy standpoint, the…
We come this month to one of the most pernicious problems in the reconstruction of Ancient Near Eastern chronology, the problem of the Assyrian King Lists. We cannot proceed further with our survey of the chronology of the kings of Israel until we remove this roadblock from our path. We…
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Barbara Newman has argued in Medieval Crossover that we mistake medieval literature and thought if we look at it from a post-Renaissance angle of vision. Sacred and secular exist in every world, and the shift from medieval to modern doesn’t change that. The issue, though, is which is the default…
Yellowhammer News reports that the Alabama state legislature is considering getting the state out of the marriage business: “State Senator Greg Albritton (R-Range) saw his bill to remove the state government from the marriage business clear its first hurdle Wednesday, after it passed out of the Judiciary committee unanimously. “SB377…
Troilus is mentioned in the Iliad , long enough to die. Priam laments that his best sons have died at Greek hands, leaving him with only the dregs of his family. In Pope's translation: Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire! Why did you not all in Hector’s cause expire? Wretch…
J acques Lacan devoted considerable attention to the psychoanalytical import of the courtly love tradition, and this has been developed at some length by Slavoj Zizek, especially in Metastases of Enjoyment . For Zizek, the elevation of the Lady that takes place in courtly love isn’t a “spiritualization” but rather…
B efore Lacan and Zizek devoted attention to courtly love, there was Denis de Rougemont’s Love in the Western World , which was popular reading among French intellectuals among whom postmodernism arose. It's an exaggeration to say that postmodernism ontologizes courtly love, but it's the kind of exaggeration that gets…
Insofar as Derrida's thought is a thought of the ineffable, retreated sublime, the transcendent signified that escapes language and leaves only traces, his thought is structured like the courtship of a courtly lover. In an essay in the Cardozo Law Review , Barbara Vinken shows that Derrida was quite self-conscious…
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