Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18, 19: Latter Prophets and the Writings John 18 and 19 record the arrest, trial, torture, and death of Jesus as laid out in detail in Isaiah 53. After the Roman soldier pierces Jesus’ side, John quotes Zechariah: “They shall look at him whom they pierced” (Zech 12:10). In…
John 12.12 – John 17: Latter Prophets In the Hebrew Scriptures, Kings is followed by the Latter Prophets. John 12:15 quotes Zechariah 9:9 as having prophesied Jesus’ triumphal entry: “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” [1] N.T. Wright…
John 6.16-70: Joshua The book of Joshua documents the nation of Israel entering the Promised Land. Consider the order of events: (1) Israel is still receiving the daily miracle of manna; (2) Israel miraculously crosses the Jordan on dry foot; (3) The day after Passover , Israel eats produce of…
Since my educational and professional training have revolved around story and narrative structure, I approach John’s Gospel from a literary and narrative perspective. In doing so, I have noticed structural story patterns and followed them where they seem to lead: the Gospel of John parallels the ordering of the books…
The Mt. Sinai Hospital was neolithic on the black hill of Hollow, New Hampshire. Winter dampened the trees and the wind bit at the sparse branches, the sidewalks and stairs were perilous with soggy leaves, and the dim yellow light cast a pallor upon the milky stone building. Ambling inside…
The Revelation can only be understood in the light of Old Testament symbols and sequences. The same is true of the epistle of Jude, which serves as a blistering hors d’oeuvre to John’s fiery feast. Possibly written by the apostle Judas Thaddaeus (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22), the epistle…
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L aura Horak's Girls Will Be Boys examines cross-dressing women and lesbians in early 20th-century American film. According to the TLS review , “The sheer number of cross-dressed girls/women and the instances of same-sex female desire that featured in the films of 1908-34 is staggering. (Horak unearthed 476 relevant titles,…
J oseph Bottum ponders why inductions into the Baseball Hall of Fame are so full of sepia-hued nostalgia. One reason has to do with the life-spans of baseball players: “football players are so short. . . . Great baseball players, by contrast, tend to have careers half again as long,…
W hen Saddam Hussein pushed into Iran in September of 1980, the US was in an ambiguous position. As Andrew Bacevich notes ( America's War for the Greater Middle East , 89-91): “As a practical matter, with the hostage crisis still ongoing and few Americans predisposed to sympathize with Iran,…
T he story of David's installation of the ark in Jerusalem can be told as a series of “outbursts” (variations of the Hebrew word paratz ; see Johnstone, 1 & 2 Chronicles , 169). In total, the verb paratz is used four times in chapters 13-15, and the noun “outburst”…
J ean Hani ( The Symbolism of the Christian Temple , 10) illustrates her concept of “vertical” cosmic symbolism with a quotation from Bonaventure: “Everything, in each of its properties, shows the diverse Wisdom, and he who knows all the properties of beings will see the Wisdom clearly. All the…
Mark Lindsay ( Barth, Israel, and Jesus , 27-28) notes that Barth found little intellectual companionship during his early pastorate at Safenwil. Yet, “his final years in Safenwil opened up occasions for contact with individual Jews and Jewish Christians at both social and academic levels. Many of these were Germans,…
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