Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). The famous definition of faith with which the eleventh chapter of Hebrews opens has received a number of different interpretations. The crux of the problem is the interpretation of the words translated in…
This essay is an exploration of one element of the final of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John. My thesis is that the Gospel of John answers the issue of "friendship" being a homoerotic category. It challenges the "Greek Way of Love and Friendship" 1 It is indeed the…
"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…
Matthew 8-9 records three clusters of miracles, interspersed with snatches of Jesus’ teaching about various aspects of discipleship. Just as the Sermon on the Mount displays the authority of Jesus’ Word in teaching, these chapters display the authority of Jesus’ Word over sickness, uncleanness, the creation, demons, and death. In…
The association of women and wells in the Scriptures has long been noted by theologians, a symbolism closely connected to marriage which begins in Genesis and climaxes in Revelation. There is a lesson drawn in the water of wells that I’d like to explore, but before that I must trace…
Of course, since the Israelites had agriculture, Solomon was not paleolithic as that term is used today. But "paleo" is simply a prefix meaning old or previous , the opposite of "neo." In that sense, I wonder if we might understand Solomon better if we interpret his statements and riddles…
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In a 2011 JBL article, Kyle Harper examines the usage of the Greek word porneia from its classical uses through the New Testament and into the early church. He hopes to specify its meaning, since the usual English translation as “sexual immorality” is “so vague” that it “inevitable threatens to…
In his contribution to Purity and the Forming of Religious Traditions , Philippe Borgeaud explores ancient comparative anthropology, the ways in which Greeks used other cultures as “mirrors.” Along the way (269-70), he discusses Porphyry’s De Abstinentia , which he compares to Mary Douglas’s classic Purity and Danger . For…
Sketching a theological account in support of Reformed ressourcement in their Reformed Catholicity , Michael Allen and Scott Swain appeal to the argument of Reinhold Hutter’s Suffering Divine Things . Hutter tries to avoid both a notion of “strict continuation” between the church and the incarnate Christ and a Barthian…
Robert Louis Wilken, noted church historian and Chairman of the Board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, will deliver the second annual Nevin Lectures on February 20-21, at the Hodges Chapel of the Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama. Wilken will give three lectures on “The Catholic Roots of…
In his study of Justification in Earlier Medieval Theology , Charles Carlson concludes that early medieval commentators on Paul did not give any special attention to justification. For most of the early scholastics, “justification” was a synonym for the remission of sins, and prior to the thirteenth century it was…
Ancient Babylonian temples were busy places. There were butchers and cooks for the meat, bakers for the bread and brewers of beer. The temple was supplied by farmers and milkmen, fishermen, oxherds, orchard keepers. Some were specialists in setting the table of the god, and others artisans who work with…
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