Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Summary : The Bible is a multi-faceted text. As a result, it can fruitfully be analyzed in many ways. Pace, context, flow, imagery: all of these aspects of the Biblical text are significant and instructive. Here, by way of illustration, I analyze Gen. 38 in a range of different ways,…
Summary: The Bible is a multi-faceted text. As a result, it can fruitfully be analysed in many ways. Pace, context, flow, imagery: all of these aspects of the Biblical text are significant and instructive. Here, by way of illustration, I analyse Gen. 38 in a range of different ways, and…
The closing chapters of the Bible bring to fulfillment the mission inaugurated in the opening chapters of the Bible: the dwelling place of God expands to fill the entire new creation. The story of Scripture concludes having achieved God’s original intent for His people in the Garden of Eden, and…
Oddly, the nature of pre -modern economies plays a central role in today’s policy debate over economic globalization and neo-liberalism. Analysts take ancient non-market economies as the standard against which to measure the economic and social effects of the market system. Scholars compare the distribution of economic goods and services…
In part one of this essay, I mentioned that the story of Zacchaeus includes not only many details that point to other passages in Luke, but also details that point to the Old Testament, though we might not initially think of them. The first detail I have in mind is…
The story of Zacchaeus includes numerous interesting details that link this story with others in the Gospel of Luke. There are also details that tie the story of Zacchaeus to the Old Testament in ways that we might not initially take note of. In the Gospel of Luke, the story…
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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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