Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18, 19: Latter Prophets and the Writings John 18 and 19 record the arrest, trial, torture, and death of Jesus as laid out in detail in Isaiah 53. After the Roman soldier pierces Jesus’ side, John quotes Zechariah: “They shall look at him whom they pierced” (Zech 12:10). In…
John 12.12 – John 17: Latter Prophets In the Hebrew Scriptures, Kings is followed by the Latter Prophets. John 12:15 quotes Zechariah 9:9 as having prophesied Jesus’ triumphal entry: “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” [1] N.T. Wright…
John 6.16-70: Joshua The book of Joshua documents the nation of Israel entering the Promised Land. Consider the order of events: (1) Israel is still receiving the daily miracle of manna; (2) Israel miraculously crosses the Jordan on dry foot; (3) The day after Passover , Israel eats produce of…
Since my educational and professional training have revolved around story and narrative structure, I approach John’s Gospel from a literary and narrative perspective. In doing so, I have noticed structural story patterns and followed them where they seem to lead: the Gospel of John parallels the ordering of the books…
The Mt. Sinai Hospital was neolithic on the black hill of Hollow, New Hampshire. Winter dampened the trees and the wind bit at the sparse branches, the sidewalks and stairs were perilous with soggy leaves, and the dim yellow light cast a pallor upon the milky stone building. Ambling inside…
The Revelation can only be understood in the light of Old Testament symbols and sequences. The same is true of the epistle of Jude, which serves as a blistering hors d’oeuvre to John’s fiery feast. Possibly written by the apostle Judas Thaddaeus (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22), the epistle…
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A couple of weeks ago, I mused on whether Saussure would have agreed with Barr’s rejection of the idea that different mentalities are built into different languages. In his superb book on Saussure, Jonathan Culler provides further evidence that Saussure would not agree with Barr. Culler’s argument, to put it…
Gilles Emery writes concerning Thomas’s view of essence and person in the Trinity, defending Thomas against Rahnerian-style charges: “There is . . . not ‘derivation’ of persons from an essential act in Thomas. This observation clarifies anew the structure of the treatise on God: the distinction of the two sections…
Bonaventure wrote: “Behold, therefore, and observe that the highest good is unqualifiedly that than which no greater can be thought. And this good is such that it cannot rightly be thought of as non-existing, since to exist is absolutely better than not to exist.” So far, so Anselmian. Then Bonaventure…
The “seven-eyed” stone in Zechariah 3:9 has been variously interpreted - for example, as the crown on the head of the high priest Joshua (the seven eyes being the letters engraved on the crown), as the kingdom of God, as a stone with seven “springs” (in Hebrew, the same word…
Babylon was considered a holy city in the ancient world, its kings consecrated by power given by Marduk. This is the reason the Persians destroyed the temple of Esagila and deported the statue of Marduk to Persia (or, by some accounts, melted it down) when the Babylonians revolted against Persian…
Postmodernism has, we are told, “decentered” the modern self, that unified, sovereign, isolated, godlike “thinking thing” discovered by Rene Descartes. The postmodern self is not single but multiple; not sovereign but controlled by external forces; not isolated but “embedded” in the world and in relation; not godlike, but human, all…
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