Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
There is no question about the fact that the book of Deuteronomy is full of literary allusion. But there is a serious problem, even a paradox, of understanding how that allusion works. To begin with, if we assume that Deuteronomy was written by Moses — with some editorial emendations added…
Genesis and Genetics in Blade Runner 2049 The power of science fiction, and what’s positive about it, is that you’re able to experience the worst-case scenario without actually having to live it. (Actor Ryan Gosling, who plays Officer “K”) (Warning: The following analysis contains spoilers for both Blade Runner films.)…
The battle of Gog and Magog is found in Ezekiel 38-39. My purpose in this brief essay is to propound an explanation for this passage that I have not encountered in any of my commentaries, but that makes more sense to me than any other. I offer it here in…
I. Varlam Shalamov in Kolyma Tales describes his experience of the Gulag, where he spent more than a dozen of years. In a story titled The Life of Engineer Kipreev Shalamov reflects on the theme of hope in the life of a prisoner: “Hope always shackles the convict. Hope is…
Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…
And he said to me, "What do you see?" And I answered, "I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits" (Zechariah 5:2). Immediately following his vision of the outpouring of the Spirit upon the restoration community (4:1-14), Zechariah saw a flying scroll. The…
Showing page 100 of 309
Showing page 21 of 43
In Rune 40 of the Finnish epic, Kalevala , the hero, Wainamoinen, is sailing with his friends to Pohjola, where he intends to recover the Sampo, a talisman of good luck and extraordinary, mysterious power. No one today quite knows what the Sampo was, but many of the episodes of…
Chaucer, like Shakespeare after him, set some of his poems in ancient Greece. The “Knight's Tale” takes place in Athens, ruled by the same “Duke” Theseus who rules Athens in Midsummer Nights Dream . Troilus and Cresyde is a Trojan love tragedy. Neither of these works, however, shows much deep…
According to C. S. Lewis ( English Literature in the Sixteenth Century , 27-28), English humanists were most interested in style, but the style was mostly Latin: “Greek was given abundance of ‘mouth honor,’ but only the minor Greek authors (Plutarch, Heliodrous, Chilles Tatius, the Anthology) were really relished. Greek…
Emily, the lady-love of Chaucer's “Knight's Tale,” the first of the Canterbury Tales, appears in a garden, and the poet describes her as if where were part of the garden. She is Eve in Eden. But this is no Edenic world. The men who see her are locked out of…
Tragic stories are fall stories. Whether through moral wrong or through some inadvertent hamartia , the tragic hero falls from a high place. Others are engulfed in the tragedy to one extent or another, but not everyone. Those who watch can experience the catharsis of pity and fear by watching…
C S. Lewis describes the formation of medieval allegorism in his classic Allegory of Love . He begins by distinguishing between an allegorical and a sacramental or symbolic turn of mind. Allegory begins, he says, with “an immaterial fact, such as the passions which you actually experience” and finds ways…
Showing page 434 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
