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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Biblical Horizons

Gordon Wenham on Ritual

In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states: We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society: a nod, a handshake,…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 27, 1995
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Biblical Horizons

A Postscript to the Meyers Thesis

Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 27, 1995
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Baptism

Sacramental Efficacy

Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato , virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and "presto!" the sacraments confer grace.…

by Peter LeithartJanuary 26, 1995
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Exodus

Mansions in the Sky, The Meaning of the Tabernacle

When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do…

by James B. JordanJanuary 7, 1995
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Revelation

The Angels of Revelation

Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus…

by James B. JordanJanuary 7, 1995
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Biblical Horizons

Triune Revelation and Through New Eyes Volume 2

Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the…

by James B. JordanJanuary 7, 1995

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Love Stronger Than Death, 1

“Love is as strong as death, and jealousy as Sheol.” A fine sentiment, but what does it mean? Maybe it means that love is as inevitable as death. We’re all going to die; our last resting place in this creation is the grave. Perhaps Solomon says that love is inevitable…

October 26, 2015

Jesus, Joseph, and Nazirite Vows

In his contribution to Searching the Scriptures , Roger Aus examines Mark 14:25 (Jesus says, “I will never again drink the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God”). He takes its as a Nazirite vow to refrain from wine until…

October 26, 2015

Baptism and the New World

Stephen Turley ( The Ritualized Revelation of the Messianic Age ) doesn't think standard treatments of Paul's baptismal formula in Galatians 3 get the point. The standard options - ex opere operato and ex opere operantis - share the “common false assumption: they both place pistis and baptizein in a…

October 26, 2015

On Divine and Bestial Eternity

Early in Revelation, the Father is described as the one who “is and who was and who comes” (Revelation 1:4). 1:8 suggests that the Trinity might be described in the same way. The Trinity is not a God immune to time; the eternality of the Trinity is the eternality of…

October 23, 2015
Art

Ironies of Participation

Hal Foster's Bad New Days is an assessment of the past twenty-five years of European and American art. Foster organizes his treatment under five themes - Abject, Archival, Mimetic, Precarious, and Post-Critical? One will notice that “beauty” is absent. Today's avant garde makes Francis Bacon look tame. One of Foster's…

October 23, 2015

Quotidian Wonders

Psalm 136 is a dialogic Psalm in which the second line of each verse is the same: “For His lovingkindness is everlasting.” The God of lovingkindness is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the Creator of sun, moon, stars, sea, and sky. He delivered Israel from…

October 23, 2015

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