Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
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It's an inventive solution. In an essay on the Logic of Impurity , David Kraemer argues, counterintuitively, that impurity marks something as God's possession. He argues from the strange anomalies associated with corpse defilement and its cleansing: “The human corpse is, according to the Torah, the most powerful source of…
Holy Week is a passage through darkness, as we commemorate the betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. But Holy Week doesn't end on the cross. Easter dispels the darkness. Good Friday followed by Easter means that darkness and death no longer mark an end, but mark a beginning. It…
Paul Ludwig ( Eros and Polis ) observes that “A recurrent feature of ancient Greek political discourse was the assertion that erotic passion was a causal factor in the emergence and maintenance, as well as the decline, of the Greek polis.” But this didn't make the Greek proto-Foucauldians: “the term…
Kelley Bulkeley's Big Dreams is about the big subject of religion, examined from the perspective of our dreaming. He begins with the simple, well-known observation that most of our dreams are quickly forgotten, while “a few are highly memorable.” Any account of dreaming should try to account for this. Taking…
As Paul strolls through Athens, what impresses him is not the architecture, culture, or art. He sees that the city is full of idols, and he is provoked in spirit (Acts 17:16). That provokes a few reflections. What did Paul see that others in Athens did not see? What would…
Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd was first published in 1895. It reads like something taken from today's headlines about the crowds generated by Donald Trump's campaign. Le Bon argued that a crowd involved the “disappearance of conscious personality and the turning of feelings and thoughts in a definite direction, which…
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