Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The name of Harry Turtledove is well known to readers of fantasy and science fiction. Turtledove is an historian, and most of what he writes is in the "alternative history" genre. A fine collection of short stories, available in paperback, is his Agent of Byzantium . These stories are set…
In answer to a question, the following about the unicorn, a supposed "New Age" symbol: The unicorn, or monoceros (one-horn), was known around the ancient world. Some scholars believe it may have been the one-horned goat that is still bred today. Others think it may have originated in tales of…
3. A Brief Survey of Esther (continued from the previous issue) Haman told the king that "a certain people" were rebellious against him, and that Haman wanted to rid the king of their noxious presence. The king agreed, and the two sat down to a feast. This is the third…
It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…
2. The Setting of the Book of Esther (continued from previous issue) Astyages E. W. Faulstich presents his arguments in his book History, Harmony, The Exile & Return . 1 To understand it, we have to have some background. The Assyrians ruled the near east. Median king Cyaxeres decided to…
In my commentary on Judges, I demonstrated that Jephthah in his Spirit-led vow intended to offer to Yahweh the first person who greeted him from the doors of his house after the battle. Since it was a custom for the young women to come out dancing to greet the returning…
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I want to try to bridge the gap between medieval and Renaissance obsession with gift and gratitude and the Enlightenment where these are either privatized or reduced or ignored altogether. Let me begin with some additional thoughts on Timon of Athens, following the argument of an insightful 1947 article by…
Jenson’s article “What is the Point of Trinitarian Theology?” in Chrisoph Schwobel’s Trinitarian Theology Today offers one of the most succinct statements of Jenson’s theology. He begin with the observation that “theology” and particularly “Trinitarian theology” is not second-order discourse at base, but first-order discourse, reflected in addresses, prayers, and…
Veli-Matti Karkkainen offers a good summary of Jenson’s Trinitarian theology. He begins with seven propositions that describe Jenson’s particular contribution to Trinitarian studies. First, the Trinity is about the identity of Israel’s and the church’s God among the gods of the nations. Second, this God is identified by and with…
In a penetrating article on de doctrina Christiana , Rowan Williams points out that the grotesqueness and strangeness of the Bible is a “prophylactic against fastidiousness,” particularly the fastidiousness that assumes we have “nothing to learn from what startles or offends our taste.”
Jenson again: Western history teaches that “the experience of beauty does not survive the cessation of worship. Precisely those who thematically dedicate themselves to beauty, and who within the modern Western tradition regularly just so abandon worship, are in wave after wave driven at last to deny beauty as well.…
Robert Jenson says “It was the great single dogma of late Mediterranean antiquity’s religion and irreligion, that no story can be ‘really’ true of God, that deity equals ‘impassibility.’ It is not merely that the gospel tells a story about the object of worship; every religion of antiquity did that.…
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