Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…
One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…
Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…
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In his book on Dogma and Preaching , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger reflected on the value of Christian festivity: “A Christian feast . . . means that the human person leaves the world of calculation and determinisms in which everyday life snares him, and that he focuses his being on the…
“I along am not able to carry all this people,” Moses says when Israel complains about hunger in the wilderness. “If You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once” (Numbers 11:14-15). Yahweh responds by ordered Moses to gather 70 men from the people, on whom…
Jeff Menne argues that the films of Francis Ford Coppola are films about the business of film, and specifically about Francis Ford Coppola’s place in that business. The film industry that Coppola first entered, Menne argues, is a classic example of “Fordism,” of the mechanization and routinization of work. For…
A study from the Columbia Business School has discovered that “umpires grant a larger and more generous strike zone to All-Star pitchers, and were also less likely to miss pitches that were in the official strike zone for these pitchers.” The research reviewed 800,000 pitches from 2008-2009, comparing them to…
Jacob’s firstborn is Reuben, but he doesn’t become the preeminent son of Jacob because he takes his father’s concubine. Neither do the next two, Simeon and Levi, because they slaughter the men of the city of Shechem. It’s the fourth, Judah, who becomes the chief among his brothers. The same…
In his recent Trinity House lectures on Genesis, James Jordan argues that the sons of God (that is, the faithful line of Seth) are attracted to the “good” daughters of men (women from Cain’s line) not because of their beauty but because of the social and cultural advantages of allying…
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