Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Book of Genesis contains eleven distinct markers readily acknowledged as the toledot formula. 1 Commentator Nahum Sarna counts the ’elleh toledot to be “…one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Book of Genesis”. 2 Among translations, the noun is variously translated as “generations” (ESV, KJV), “records of the generations”…
The answer that immediately comes to mind to the question in the title is Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. He was conceived during the extension of life that God granted Hezekiah in response to his ardent prayer on his sick bed (2 Kings 20:1-11, 21:1). His reign is summarized in…
Back in 2019, on a whim, I sketched out a setting for a modern fantasy story: a single coffee shop that is simultaneously present in multiple cities throughout the world: “...you know the one. Books by local authors, brochures for a walking tour of the city’s outdoor sculpture, a poetry…
Peter O’Brien’s translation of Colossians 4:2 surprised me: “Persevere in prayer as you watch for the Lord’s return, and be thankful.” 1 What is surprising about that? Well, none of my English translations mentioned “the Lord’s return” — nor does the Greek text! Translated literally, the verse just says: “In…
I Natural Law This is a brief (well, briefer than it could be) first attempt at responding to a very small section of Stephen Wolfe’s recent book The Case for Christian Nationalism . It’s partial, deeply incomplete, and does not at all address the book as a whole; it is…
The scuttlebutt of the last hundred years would tell us that Albert Einstein was a horrible husband, Winston Churchill was a racist, Mother Theresa was a hypocrite, and Caravaggio a murderer. From Benjamin Britten’s boys to Gandhi’s girls, it can be depressing and confusing to hear about people of great…
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Augustine describes “pride of life” in part as follows: “The temptation is to wish to be feared or loved by people for no reason other than the joy derived from such power, which is no joy at all. It is a wretched life, and vanity is repulsive . . .…
1 John 2:15: If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. As we’ve seen this morning, John poses a stark either/or choice. Our lives are directed by our loves; what we love determines what path we take in life. Ultimately, there are only two…
John says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world,” and we immediately scurry around to find rationalizations and escape routes. Is John saying that cigarettes and beer and symphony orchestras and dancing and watching movies and art museums and playing video games are inherently sinful? Didn’t…
Stallybrass and White again: “increasingly from the sixteenth century pigs were present and high visible in the city . They wandered through the streets, sometimes biting and even killing small children: in 1608 the young Sir Hugh Cholmley was attacked by a sow. A Jacobean starchmaker kept 200 pigs in…
After a survey of the exotica on display in fairs in the 18th-19th centuries, Stallybrass and White conclude that the fairs do not, as Bakhtin argued, enact a grotesque inversion of civilized hierarchies, but instead reinforce those very hierarchies. Two passages are particularly important: “One could even mount the precise…
English fairs in earlier centuries displayed wares and displays from all over the world. At one there was an animal described as “a noble creature, which much resembled a Wild Hairy man” whose main skill was to doff his hat and show “his respects to the Company, and smoaks a…
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