Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
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…
Since the early 1980s, several of the conservative Reformed Churches have debated and wrestled with the issue of paedocommunion (infant communion). The PCA and the OPC assigned study committees to examine the question, both of which produced useful reports both in support of and against the position. Though the debate…
(This issue of Biblical Chronology concludes a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in previous posts. Click on the category link of "Biblical Chronology" above to see previous issues. Did Shalmaneser Know Jehu? Allis writes: "The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser contains, in addition to brief accounts of the…
Movies Movies as an art form have a powerful impact because they take place in a dark room, on a large screen, with no distractions, and because they entail many of the arts: music, acting, choreography, design and color, etc. A movie can be an overwhelming experience for a young…
The Hebrew word translated as "grain offering" or "cereal offering" is minchah . Like the translation of `olah as "burnt offering," the translation of minchah as "grain offering" is somewhat deceiving, since minchah does not refer to grain or cereal. In liturgical contexts outside of Leviticus, in fact, the word…
"He shall then skin the burnt offering and cut it into its pieces" (Leviticus 1:6). The normal word ( `olah ) that is translated as "burnt offering" and "whole burnt offering" has nothing to do with either burning or wholeness. It is the noun form of a verb meaning "to…
Showing page 291 of 309
Showing page 33 of 43
“R emember His wonders which He does,” the Levites sing when the ark is brought to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 16:12a), doubtless referring preeminently to the wonders of the exodus but more distantly to the wonder of doing/making creation. At creation and in the exodus, God's wonders are the wonders of…
T oward the end of the rambunctious Paris Review interview , sometimes a meta-interview about the process of interviewing, Mark Helprin answers the question, Why do you write? As always, he answers circuitously, by contrasting creativity in pre- and modern art: . . . in a secular world, each artist…
I n a NYRB review of Anthony Gottlieb’s Dream of Enlightenment , Thomas Nagel corrects Gottlieb’s account of Hobbes’s moral philosophy. He lucidly summarizes Hobbes’s moral argument for absolutism: Hobbes’s theory, and what led to his being attacked as a moral nihilist, was his refusal to appeal to any concern…
I n his poignant, deeply personal New York essay on his distraction addiction, Andrew Sullivan reflects on the silence of sacred places: “From the moment I entered a church in my childhood, I understood that this place was different because it was so quiet. The Mass itself was full of…
M axwell Anderson’s forthcoming Antiquities surveys the world of antiquities, summarizing law, history of collection, the difference between the interests of archeologists and antiquities dealers, forgeries and their detection, the market in antiquities. Everything you’d want to know. Anderson places the rise of interest in antiquities in the context of…
S tuart Banner attempts to draw the fine line between investment and gambling in his forthcoming Speculation . Among other things, his book is a history of America’s double-mindedness about speculative investing. Visitors to the early US regularly made comments like this from German journalist Francis Grund: “An American merchant…
Showing page 250 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
