Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Flying scrolls. Red horses. Beasts coming out of the sea. Winged women. The list goes on. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is like a cross between science fiction and Marvel comics. And the Bible has a fair bit of this sort of thing. Daniel sees visions in Babylon, Zechariah sees…
Trinity House Institute has taken a new name, the Theopolis Institute. This striking new name expresses our unique vision and mission and captures the unified purpose behind all our specific programs and activities. We still have Bible, liturgy, and culture in our tagline. We still offer the same courses on…
Adam Kotsko offers a socio-political variation on the Christus Victor atonement theory in his 2010 study, The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation . He does this by explaining "the devil" in terms of the Hegelian concept of "objective spirit," Geist . As Kotsko puts it, Geist "refers…
Two factors keep Nahtali Meshel from discussing the meaning of sacrifice until late in his The "Grammar" of Sacrifice . The first has to do with the texts he draws from: "P says little about the meaning of its rituals" (174). The other has to do with the grammatical theory…
Chapter 5 of Naphtali Meshel's The "Grammar" of Sacrifice focuses on "praxemics," the physical actions of sacrificial ritual. Praxemes are constituted by six elements: an "atomact," an elementary physical act or gesture; an actor; an object that is acted up; a target for the action and often for the object…
Two chapters of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice cover what he calls “jugation” and “hierarchies.” The first involves the addition of other materials to an animal offering. Jugates include wine, cereal, and oil that are added to the animals (zoemes) that are offered in sacrifice. Some jugates are coordinated…
Showing page 167 of 309
Showing page 3 of 43
The account of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:3-13) is arranged in a chiastic order: A. Two witnesses, olive trees, lampstands, vv 3-4 B. Devouring enemies with fire from mouth, v 5 C. Authority to shut up heaven, turn waters, smite earth, v 6 D. Beast from abyss makes war, overcomes,…
“ W ho’s afraid of modern art? ” asks Daniel Siedell. He answers, “I am.” As critic and curator, Siedell is passionately devoted to modern art. It frightens him because that is what it’s supposed to do. Munch’s The Scream , for instance, doesn’t just express the painters own anxieties.…
I n the terrible trial scene in Till We Have Faces , the gods strip away layer after layer of Queen Orual’s self-justification, and when she has been laid bare, she finally has something to say to them: “Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was…
In his 1959 Luther the Expositor , Jaroslav Pelikan remarked on the tendency of church historians to neglect the main thing in theologians of the past: “Entire histories have been written - histories of a whole section of the church, of an era in church history or of a major…
According to Augustine, all of Constantine’s achievements were gifts of God ( City of God , 5.25): He “gave to the Emperor Constantine, who was not a worshipper of demons, but of the true God Himself, such fulness of earthly gifts as no one would even dare wish for. To…
Donald Norwood reminds us in Reforming Rome that the Reformers were eager for a ecumenical council to resolve the conflicts sparked by the Reformation. In 1560, Calvin writes, “In order to put an end to the divisions which exist in Christianity, there is need to have a free and universal…
Showing page 462 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
