Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…
In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…
The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…
Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…
In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…
A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…
Showing page 60 of 309
Showing page 35 of 43
In a NYT review of Arthur Phillips’s latest, Kate Christensen comments, “The male muse is an unaccountably rare thing in art, with the exception of the men who inspired the likes of Auden and O’Hara — that is, men who were as sexualized and fetishized as their female counter parts,…
Carl Becker ( The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers ) writes that though the Philosophes were devoted to reason, “a skeptical lot, atheists in effect if not by profession, addicted to science and the scientific method, always ready to crush the infamous, valiant defenders of liberty, equality, fraternity, freedom…
In an article on Constantine’s church-building, Gregory Alexander repeats a commonplace about the difference between pagan and Christian places of worship: “The temple is a house for the god; the church is a gathering place for communal worship.” Yes, but: Jesus says He’ll be there in our gathering, so the…
Freeman’s colossal misconceptions come out on every page. Under that patient persecution by the Romans, some Christians saw the light and offered sacrifice, but others “resisted to the point of martyrdom.” Not that it mattered much; they were eager to die, since they preferred “their reward in heaven . .…
Two instances of Freeman’s distortions (these from The Closing of the Western Mind ). First, he has a couple of pictures of the Riace warrior statue from Delphi, which “represents man at his most heroic, almost a god in his own right.” On the facing page he says “By the…
Charles Freeman notes that the sarcophagus of the Roman aristocrat Junius Bassus depicts Jesus “entering Jerusalem as if he was an emperor entering a city, and above this image he is shown sitting in glory on an imperial throne set above a representation of heaven.” He cites Sabine MacCormack’s comment…
Showing page 1395 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
