Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I'm afraid of messing up. Not just of messing up in general, but of messing this up—the big This that is the story that is my life, the story that God is attempting to tell with me as His material. The question casts its shadow over all my decisions. Can…
Jesus’ letter to Pergamum mentions Balaam and Balak (Revelation 2:14), and that is a signal that the whole message is running along the lines of Numbers 22-25. The death of the high priest is a sacrificial moment in the life of Israel. According to the rules of the cities of…
As you come to be joined in marriage today, I want to take a moment to focus on one important dimension of what it means to be married as Christians: that is as those who know Jesus and are being made into His likeness. This is a glorious day, full…
When Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.” Jesus saith unto him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest…
Philosophers have measured mountains, Fathom'd the depths of seas, of states, and kings, Walk'd with a staff to heaven, and traced fountains But there are two vast, spacious things, The which to measure it doth more behove: Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love. The Agonie –…
The third chapter of Luke famously opens with a list of mighty men, seven mighty men, potential heroes of the Mediterranean world. Beginning with Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate, passing on to Herod the Tetrarch and his brothers, and ending with two High Priests, Luke says that the word of…
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S elf-transcendence is in various forms an essential part of modern moral theory. To be truly good, in a Kantian framework, is to transcend personal self-interest, self-love, in order to conform one’s actions to the categorical imperative. Halbertal ( On Sacrifice ) observes that this note of self-transcendence means that…
In both Christian and Jewish theology, charity was one of the forms of post-sacrificial sacrifice. Halbertal ( On Sacrifice , 40-1) observes that this is not merely a matter of substitution but of fulfillment. Sacrifice, he points out, always exists under the possibility of failure. A worshiper brings his gift,…
It’s a central thesis of John B. Judis’s new Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict that there was a moment when the Arab-Israeli conflict could have been averted, but, under pressure from the Zionist lobby, the great powers, especially the US under Truman, failed to avert…
The Economist review of The Great Prostate Hoax by Richard Ablin observes that opposition to prostate testing has moved in from the margins. Ablin, who claims to have identified the protein widely associated with prostate cancer, questions whether it gives any useful information. As the review explains, “In some men…
Drawing on Howard Eilberg-Schwartz’s The Savage in Judaism , I argue that the ills of modern theology can be cured only by re-savaging Judaism. And Christianity.
The notion that American Indians are the ten lost tribes of Israel is quaint today, but during the age of exploration, Europeans thought they had plenty of proof. Thomas Thorowgood’s Iewes in America laid out dozens of resemblances between Judaism and Indian customs. As summarized by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, these included:…
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