Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Flying scrolls. Red horses. Beasts coming out of the sea. Winged women. The list goes on. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is like a cross between science fiction and Marvel comics. And the Bible has a fair bit of this sort of thing. Daniel sees visions in Babylon, Zechariah sees…
Trinity House Institute has taken a new name, the Theopolis Institute. This striking new name expresses our unique vision and mission and captures the unified purpose behind all our specific programs and activities. We still have Bible, liturgy, and culture in our tagline. We still offer the same courses on…
Adam Kotsko offers a socio-political variation on the Christus Victor atonement theory in his 2010 study, The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation . He does this by explaining "the devil" in terms of the Hegelian concept of "objective spirit," Geist . As Kotsko puts it, Geist "refers…
Two factors keep Nahtali Meshel from discussing the meaning of sacrifice until late in his The "Grammar" of Sacrifice . The first has to do with the texts he draws from: "P says little about the meaning of its rituals" (174). The other has to do with the grammatical theory…
Chapter 5 of Naphtali Meshel's The "Grammar" of Sacrifice focuses on "praxemics," the physical actions of sacrificial ritual. Praxemes are constituted by six elements: an "atomact," an elementary physical act or gesture; an actor; an object that is acted up; a target for the action and often for the object…
Two chapters of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice cover what he calls “jugation” and “hierarchies.” The first involves the addition of other materials to an animal offering. Jugates include wine, cereal, and oil that are added to the animals (zoemes) that are offered in sacrifice. Some jugates are coordinated…
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The third vision of the Apocalypse takes place in the wilderness, where Jesus unveils Babylon, the harlot city that drinks the blood of the saints. This is the thing that will shortly take place: The beast that carries Babylon is going to turn on her and destroy her. This third…
Thomas Aquinas is known for his negative theology: "We are not capable of knowing what God s, but we can know what He is not" (ST, I, 3, prologue). His negative philosophy is less well known, but Josef Pieper argues ( The Silence of Saint Thomas ) that this is…
This is my last blog post at Patheos. In the future, I will post now and then at TheopolisInstitute.com . Look for me there.
Some observations about the story of Tamar and Judah, recorded in Genesis 38, inspired by a lively discussion of the narrative at the Theopolis Regional Course in Dallas last weekend. 1) The chapter has a chiastic structure: A. Judah’s family, vv 1-5: take wife and conceive; births; replacement of firstborn…
Steve Duby objects to my brief set of warnings about the uses of philosophy in theology. I suppose I've said ill-considered things about philosophy or some philosopher in some of my writing. But this post was, in my judgment, generous in spirit, moderate in its claims, and modest in its…
In a chapter on "Nicene metaphysics" in The Hidden and the Manifest , David Bentley Hart explains the radical differences between the Plotinian metaphysics and the metaphysics implicit in early Trinitarianism. The article turns on the dynamics of hiddenness and manifestation. Plotinus's ultimate principle, "the One," cannot reveal itself. It…
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