Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Book of Genesis contains eleven distinct markers readily acknowledged as the toledot formula. 1 Commentator Nahum Sarna counts the ’elleh toledot to be “…one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Book of Genesis”. 2 Among translations, the noun is variously translated as “generations” (ESV, KJV), “records of the generations”…
The answer that immediately comes to mind to the question in the title is Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. He was conceived during the extension of life that God granted Hezekiah in response to his ardent prayer on his sick bed (2 Kings 20:1-11, 21:1). His reign is summarized in…
Back in 2019, on a whim, I sketched out a setting for a modern fantasy story: a single coffee shop that is simultaneously present in multiple cities throughout the world: “...you know the one. Books by local authors, brochures for a walking tour of the city’s outdoor sculpture, a poetry…
Peter O’Brien’s translation of Colossians 4:2 surprised me: “Persevere in prayer as you watch for the Lord’s return, and be thankful.” 1 What is surprising about that? Well, none of my English translations mentioned “the Lord’s return” — nor does the Greek text! Translated literally, the verse just says: “In…
I Natural Law This is a brief (well, briefer than it could be) first attempt at responding to a very small section of Stephen Wolfe’s recent book The Case for Christian Nationalism . It’s partial, deeply incomplete, and does not at all address the book as a whole; it is…
The scuttlebutt of the last hundred years would tell us that Albert Einstein was a horrible husband, Winston Churchill was a racist, Mother Theresa was a hypocrite, and Caravaggio a murderer. From Benjamin Britten’s boys to Gandhi’s girls, it can be depressing and confusing to hear about people of great…
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Anatolios makes the striking observation that Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover” is even more transcendent than Plato’s form of the good. For Plato, being is self-communicative, and his most exalted realities (the form of the good, the forms) are participatable. Not Aristotle’s UM, which just thinks thinking in total self-absorption, while everything…
Henry Chadwick notes that the “alienation of Egypt and much of Syria from the Chalcedonian government was a serious political matter, and gravely weakened those key provinces before the Moslem invasions.”
Were the ecumenical councils infallible? Many in the early church clearly didn’t consider them so. The most vigorous, and vicious, arguments over Arius took place between Nicea and First Constantinople, and the Monophysite controversy continued for a century and more after Chalcedon had condemned Eutyches (as well as Nestorius). Nestorianism…
Henry Chadwick notes that Julian the Apostate tried to gain Jewish support by proposing to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem: “although Julian had little but contempt for Judaism, he was well aware that a proposal to restore sacrificies in a rebuilt temple at Jerusalem would touch the Christians at a…
Much of the theology instruction in the high middle ages took the form of commentary on established texts, most importantly the Four Books of the Sentences by Peter the Lombard. Lombard’s triumph, though, was contested. As Deeana Klepper points out in her book on Nicolas of Lyra, one of the…
Jean Blum characterized Hamann’s thought as follows: “Hamann’s thought is what those who do not normally think would think if they did think.” That gets it pretty well, as does Berlin’s comment that Hamann “was a major force in transforming the ideas which hitherto had lived in small, self-isolated religious…
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