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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Advent

Why Stalker Should be Added to Your Christmas Watchlist

Stalker is a Soviet-era film by Andrei Tarkovsky in which an enigmatic location comes into existence either through an alien crash or a nuclear disaster; the film never makes it clear, but knowing Tarkovsky’s criticism of the spectacle nature of the alien motif after his own filming of Solaris and…

by Garrett SoucyDecember 19, 2023
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Motherhood

A Greater Capacity

I was scrolling through Instagram on the night of Thanksgiving, the only one awake (as usual), coming down from my extrovert-high after all the conversation and merriment of the day, when I came across a post that stopped me in my tracks. The post contained a picture-perfect image of some…

by Lindsey MurphyDecember 18, 2023
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Theopolis News

The 2024 James B. Jordan Prize

The Theopolis Institute is pleased to announce the fourth round of the James B. Jordan Prize to honor outstanding doctoral dissertations in biblical theology. James Jordan is one of the most insightful biblical scholars of our time. The Jordan Prize exists to encourage more of the deep Scriptural investigation of…

by Peter LeithartDecember 15, 2023
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Eschatology

What Kind of Story Is History?

Suppose I were to write three versions of a story. In every version, the first half of the book looks forward to the coming of the king. There are promises about him and about how glorious his kingdom will be, about how his kingdom will fill the earth with peace…

by John BarachDecember 12, 2023
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Galatians

Re-Considering Doug Wilson's "Covenant with Hagar"

Introduction Doug Wilson’s American Milk and Honey is now available. There’s a great deal in the book worth commenting on, and I anticipate engaging with that material more broadly in the near future. In the lead up to its release, however, Moscow has not been silent concerning Israel, the Jews,…

by Gabe HarderDecember 11, 2023
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Parables

The Older Son

Our telling of the Prodigal Son parable usually (and rightly) focuses on the runaway younger brother: the lost son returns, and his father joyfully and graciously receives him. But the full story has an additional element: an angry older brother. Jesus uses the older brother to rebuke the religious leaders…

by Tim NicholsDecember 6, 2023

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Guilt and Guilt-Bearing

B rad Littlejohn presents a number of criticisms of my account of penal substitution in Delivered from the Elements of the World . I won’t attempt to address all of them, but focus—at once too briefly and at tedious length—on Brad’s central substantive question, which concerns guilt and Jesus’ guilt-bearing.…

September 20, 2016

Atomizing and Abstraction

I ’ve been reading commentaries on Revelation 1:12–20, learning a great deal, but getting increasingly frustrated. Even the best commentators sometimes fall into the twin faults of contemporary interpretation—atomization and abstraction. Let’s take the “robe” that Jesus wears. Many have suggested that the robe designates Jesus as a priest, but…

September 20, 2016

Beyond Language?

I n his Anchor Bible commentary on Revelation , Craig Koester says this about John's initial vision of Jesus: “ The figure’s appearance defies easy description: hair that is white like wool or snow, eyes like a flame of fire, a voice like rushing water, a face like the sun.…

September 19, 2016

Macbeth’s Three Murders

I n a contribution to Harold Bloom’s collection of essays on Macbeth , Robert Lanier Reid observes that ” Interpreters of Macbeth have focused almost exclusively on the first murder, the killing of a king in Acts 1–2, as the basis for understanding the play—its social, psychological, and metaphysical meanings.…

September 16, 2016

Motiveless Malignity

“W hat purpose do the Weird Sisters have for confronting the hero—or what is their masters’ purpose, if they in fact have such masters?” asks Susan Snyder in her contribution to Macbeth . She doesn’t think the play gives a clear answer, and she adds that the play doesn’t explain…

September 16, 2016

Macbeth and the Bible

P eter Milward writes of “meta-drama” in Hamlet and Macbeth in his contribution Shakespeare’s Christianity . He argues (unconvincingly) that Shakespeare had in mind the situation of recusant Catholics in England. Milward’s analysis of the biblical features of the play is more compelling. He notes that “already from the opening…

September 16, 2016

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