Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). The famous definition of faith with which the eleventh chapter of Hebrews opens has received a number of different interpretations. The crux of the problem is the interpretation of the words translated in…
This essay is an exploration of one element of the final of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John. My thesis is that the Gospel of John answers the issue of "friendship" being a homoerotic category. It challenges the "Greek Way of Love and Friendship" 1 It is indeed the…
"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…
Matthew 8-9 records three clusters of miracles, interspersed with snatches of Jesus’ teaching about various aspects of discipleship. Just as the Sermon on the Mount displays the authority of Jesus’ Word in teaching, these chapters display the authority of Jesus’ Word over sickness, uncleanness, the creation, demons, and death. In…
The association of women and wells in the Scriptures has long been noted by theologians, a symbolism closely connected to marriage which begins in Genesis and climaxes in Revelation. There is a lesson drawn in the water of wells that I’d like to explore, but before that I must trace…
Of course, since the Israelites had agriculture, Solomon was not paleolithic as that term is used today. But "paleo" is simply a prefix meaning old or previous , the opposite of "neo." In that sense, I wonder if we might understand Solomon better if we interpret his statements and riddles…
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Wallace again on Timon of Athens . Wallace argues that Shakespeare has written a play to explore Seneca’s society of benefits and gratitude, and shows that the classical model of social order is impossible: “the cast would appear to have been designed to test the Senecan hypothesis about the nature…
Wallace again on Timon of Athens . Wallace argues that Shakespeare has written a play to explore Seneca’s society of benefits and gratitude, and shows that the classical model of social order is impossible: “the cast would appear to have been designed to test the Senecan hypothesis about the nature…
Wallace again on Seneca in Shakespeare: “The first separat e publication of De Benficiis in an English translation was Nicholas Haward’s The Line of Liberalitie in 1569, which included only the first three books, but William Baldwin’s popular Treatise of Morall Philosophie had appeared in 1547 and contained one chapter…
In a 1986 article in Modern Philology , John Wallace argues that Timon of Athens is “Shakespeare’s Senecan Study,” reflecting on the issues raised by Seneca’s de Beneficiis : “Shakespeare must have been thinking of Seneca, but a safer argument could have been constructed on the premise that Shakespeare was…
Paul Cantor describes three of Shakespeare’s Roman plays as a trilogy, moving from the Republic ( Coriolanus ) to the early empire ( Julius Caesar ) to the decadence of Octavian ( Antony and Cleopatra ). Together they form “a kind of historical trilogy, dramatizing the rise and fall of…
In her Leviticus as Literature , the late Mary Douglas offers some interesting possibilities for interpreting the prohibition of eating fat and for the arrangement of animal portions on the altar. Her interpretation is guided by her recognition of analogies between Sinai, the tabernacle, and the body, both of the…
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