Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The story of Judges 19 and the subsequent chapters are some of the most shocking and appalling accounts in all of Scripture. The callousness of the old host and the Levite, and the monstrous brutality of the men of Gibeah, leaves us feebly scrabbling for words by which to surmount…
David has become king. He has conquered the capital city of Jerusalem. He has brought the ark of Yahweh into the city and placed it in a tent. He has stationed Levites at the tent to offer sacrifices of praise. An anomaly hits him: He has a cedar-paneled palace, and…
In Part 2 of this series we traced what we have of the development of the epiclesis in the liturgy of the Church. In this third and final part we’ll look at the theological implications of this and how we may apply what we’ve learned. As we saw in Part…
In a 2014 piece published in First Things , I offered a "wish list" for Protestant churches, a checklist for a future catholic Protestantism. The wish list doesn't cover everything. It doesn't mention those things that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, already do, often exceedingly well, things like missions and evangelism and…
In the first part of this series we examined the meaning of “blessing” in Scripture and its parallels in Jewish liturgical tradition, but did not find anything that we could properly call an epiclesis (an invocation of the Holy Spirit). We did find examples of invocation of Jesus to “come”…
When the Aaronic priests were ordained, the blood of the ram of "filling” was placed on the lobe of the right ear, the right thumb, and the right big toe (Lev. 8:22-24). Similarly, the cleansing rite for a leper included smearing the right ear lobe, thumb, and big toe with…
Showing page 123 of 309
Showing page 22 of 43
The current issue of Semeia , edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, is devoted to studies of the influence of Levinas on biblical studies and the influence of the Bible on Levinas. Ezkenazi’s introduction lays out the basic categories and the fundamental flow of Levinas’s thought. Reading it, I was continually…
A very interesting article in the same issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas by Rod Preece of Wilfrid Laurier University. He examines the effect of Darwinism on moral debates about treatment of animals during the 19th century, and concludes that Darwinism had little appreciable effect. Many of…
Emily Michael in the July 2003 issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas examines the views of John Wyclif on atoms, hylomorphism, and the mind-body problem, and argues that he represented a “first step towards a modern account of the structure of material substances,” but a step that…
Emily Michael in the July 2003 issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas examines the views of John Wyclif on atoms, hylomorphism, and the mind-body problem, and argues that he represented a “first step towards a modern account of the structure of material substances,” but a step that…
Philip Turner, currently Vice President of the Anglican Communion Institute and former Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, has a very incisive article on the current crisis in ECUSA in this month’s edition of First Things . A few quotations: First, he refers to ECUSA’s effort to fashion itself…
I’ve been seeing references to Morna Hooker’s article “Adam in Romans 1” for years ( NTS 6, 297-306), but have just today read through it. It’s a very provocative piece of work, and deserves its wide citation. Hooker carefully catalogues the terminological parallels between Romans 1 and Genesis 1 (obvious…
Showing page 2179 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
