Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
It took a parody. I devoted a section of a chapter in Deep Exegesis to Peter Enns's work, I've critiqued him on my blog here and here and here , as well as the similar work of John Walton, here and here . To my knowledge, neither Enns nor Walton…
The establishment of same-sex marriage is not a bolt from the blue, but the logical outworking of a series of related developments in America’s practice and understanding of marriage. Same-sex marriage was unthinkable just a few decades ago. What made it thinkable wasn’t a concerted campaign on the part of…
Unless Obergefell can be reversed soon through the next two presidential elections and the retirement/replacement of renegade SCOTUS judges (Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer are the first up), this will turn out to be the greatest American tragedy for the civil liberties of persons of faith, for the cause of sexual…
With same sex marriage now legalized in many Western countries, and militant Islam ravaging the East, Christians might be wondering what God is doing. With the repeated failure of predictions of an imminent second coming, is the Bible any help to us at all in predicting what will happen next?…
When I was expecting my first child, an older woman gave me the best nugget of parenting wisdom that I have. She told me to always remember that my child is my sister-in-Christ before she is my daughter. I have clung to these words in so many situations as I…
Male-female distinctions define marriage in a particular direction: the gift of generation and of generations. With its decision, the Supreme Court of the United States has done its part to deny and destroy this reality, and further the modern process of legalizing child abandonment, while at the same time violating…
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After the flood, Noah builds an altar ( mizbeach ) offers ascension offerings ( ya’al ‘oloth ). It’s the first altar and the first ascension offering in biblical history (Genesis 8:20). Noah is the first king, the first to be given authority to shed human blood, the first to drink…
Leviticus 1:7-9 describes the arrangement of animal parts for an ‘olah , an “ascension” offering. It’s a double or triple layering of the animal: head, suet, and entrails-and-legs; or, as a double structure with the entrails and legs set off from head and suet by the water barrier. Mary Douglas…
The peace offering is the one offering that a worshiper eats from. It is the offering of the marriage feast. But that’s not the thing that gets emphasized in chapter 3. What gets emphasized instead is the fat . The word is used 12 times in the chapter. These are…
Mary Douglas ( Leviticus as Literature ) explains the connections between the qereb , the inner parts of the animal, and the inner sanctuary of the tabernacle: “The Bible locates the emotions and thought in the innermost parts of the body; the loins are wrung with remorse or grief; the…
David Janzen ( Social Meanings of Sacrifice ) follows other scholars in bringing attention to “the relation between sacrifice and the importance of order.” He cites Jon Levenson’s comment that God “acts like an Israelite priest in the act of separation ( hbdyl ) of the various categories of created…
In a recent issue of Review of Biblical Literature, Lars Kierspel offers this commend on Pentecostal theologian William Atkinson’s Baptism in the Spirit , a monograph on the debate about James Dunn’s Baptism in the Holy Spirit . He argues that Atkinson errs in detaching the gift of the Spirit…
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