Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mrs. Marguerite Lane of Grand Rapids writes to ask if I have ever noticed a correlation between the eight beatitudes of Matthew 5 and the eight woes of Matthew 23. I confess that I have not. A glance at various commentators reveals that such a correspondence does not seem to…
1. The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, the burden. The man declares to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal: 2. Surely I am more stupid than any other man, And I do not have the understanding of a man. 3. And I have not learned wisdom, But I have…
Psalm 137 is widely regarded as one of the meanest of the imprecatory psalms. Certainly as we read it it is seems to be a song of pure vengeance. The exiles in Babylon, in grief over the judgment that Babylon has brought upon them, pray for the destruction of that…
In the Levitical law, the priests received two particular portions of each peace offering: the "wave offering" of the breast and the "heave offering" (or better, "contribution") of the right thigh. The purpose of this essay is to attempt to determine the reason why the second of these, the thigh,…
The story of Jesus’ visit, early in His ministry, to the synagogue in His home town of Nazareth is recorded for us in Luke 4:16-30. You may remember that Jesus read from Isaiah about how the Messiah would preach the gospel, care for the poor, work miracles, and bring in…
(The essay that follows concerns a rather touchy subject: how the Lord’s Supper is to be done. I am not writing to insult or offend, but to challenge. To that end I have not "held back" but have "gone ahead" and said what I think needs to be said —…
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William Deresiewicz has an excellent review of a new biography of Joseph Conrad in the June 11 issue of TNR . One thread of the review has to do with Conrad’s phantasmagorical vision of European imperialism and his related concern for the moral dangers of isolation from well-known social habits…
In an effort to maintain his distinction of meaning and significance, interpretation and critical assessment, E. D. Hirsch examines Welleck’s treatment of Marvell’s phrase “vegetable love.” He notes that “Welleck could not even make his point unless he could distinguish between what ‘vegetable’ probably means as used in the text…
Tallis yet again: He argues that confusion of langue and parole : leads to “conflation of the idea of a world as a value or set of values within the system with the meaning of a word used on a particular occasion, that by virtue of which verbal meaning is…
Tallis thinks that one of the basic confusions of post-Saussurean criticism is a confusion of the levels of parole and langue . Signifiers and signifieds are, for Saussure, purely differential; but words are not signifiers or signifieds, but types of signs, which are combinations of the two. Signifier and signified…
Does language take cues from reality? Tallis says Yes; at least, that’s one kind of relation language has to reality. His charming evidence: He notes that it’s more common to add “barking” to “dog” than to add other verbs. If language doesn’t take its cues from reality, “we must surely…
Tallis contests the post-structuralist notion that all distinctions are linguistic, imported to reality by what we say about them. This, he thinks, oversimplifies a more complex situation. For some realities, the “edges” are determined by language, because those realities depend on classifications that we have brought to the real world.…
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