Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The preceding essay has caused me to consider the possibility that the life of Abraham as recounted in Genesis contains a typological prophecy of the history of Israel; that is, that the events in Abraham’s life broadly anticipate events in Israel’s history. This kind of pattern is seen in the…
by: Jeff Meyers and James Jordan In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of a man who had been ill for 38 years and who was lying by a pool located by the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. This sheep waited, as did many other infirm people, for an…
What had been reduced to ruin by this sex, would by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. —Tertullian What is Paul saying about women and salvation…
Back in Biblical Horizons 132 I discussed the horrible abuse of the converted men of Salem/Shechem in Genesis 34. These Hivites had joined the covenant by circumcision and then were slaughtered by Simeon and Levi. That, however, is not the end of their story. In Joshua 9 we find the…
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…
Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…
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Unpacking her patrilineal account of sacrifice, Nancy Jay notes offhandedly that the genealogy of Genesis 4-5 is “perfectly patrilineal. No women are named; wives are not even mentioned” ( Throughout Your Generations Forever , 96). It’s true. Women are pretty much invisible after Eve is named “Living one” and bears…
In a brilliant brief discussion of the Reformation revision of Christian sacramental theology, Philippe Buc ( Dangers of Ritual ) writes: “The Reformation’s success in sixteenth-century Europe can be explained partly by the skill with which its propagandists mustered against the Roman Church notions basic to the medieval definition of…
In his Inquiry into Modes of Existence , Bruno Latour imagines an anthropologist doing field work among the tribe of Science in their natural habitat, the lab. She has been told that the Modern world is separated into interrelated but distinct domains: “Law, Science, Politics, Religion, The Economy.” These must…
Bruno Latour ( An Inquiry into Modes of Existence ) says that “the entire modern experience has stood up against living under the control of an indisputable metadispatcher. No one can make us believe the contrary: we know that it is false ” (469). Except when it comes to economy.…
Paul continues to use the language of purity and impurity, but it seems radically altered in his hands. Foods are not unclean; there is no hint that bodily conditions (menstruation, childbirth, seminal emissions) cause uncleanness. Indeed, all things are pure (Romans 14:20). But Paul’s logic is a bit more complicated…
Johann Georg Hamann, the devout German philosopher of the Enlightenment age, argues that “a kind of ‘faith’ is involved in everyday life when we recognize the real.” In several places, Hamann attributed this insight to Hume. “The reasonings of a Hume ,” he wrote, “may be convincing and their refutations…
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