Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Summary In what follows, I will consider the “year-stamps” employed in Scripture, i.e., statements of the form, “Such-and-such an event took place in the Xth year of Y.” In the process, I will suggest some ways in which the Biblical narrative might relate to events in the extra-Biblical world, though…
In the first essay on the parable of the Prodigal Son, I suggested that the problems commentators and others encounter in interpreting Jesus three-part parable are not accidental. These are not just problems in our ignorance of cultural background. They are intentional features of the stories —stories designed to poke…
The story of the Prodigal Son is perhaps the most well-known story in the Bible. As others have observed, it may also be one of the most misunderstood. In two short essays, I will point out features of this story that are commonly neglected, aspects of Jesus’ parable that might…
The parable of Lazarus and the nameless rich man is not an independent story. It is part of a long context that begins in Luke 15:1, where Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners and the scribes and Pharisees grumble. In response to their hardheartedness, Jesus tells a three-part…
The Bible is written so that even when a reader cannot pick up on what might be deeper or more detailed aspects of a text, there is virtually always a message to be heard. In the ancient world, where the “reader” of Scripture would likely be a church official facing…
The distinction between garden (or vineyard) and field begins in Genesis 2. This relates to the ordering of the formless world. Plants of the field are contrasted with the garden planted by God in Genesis 2:5&8. Later on, under the Old Covenant the Israelites will be required to keep their…
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Finding God in Ancient China by Chan Kai Thong and Charlene Fu is one of a number of studies attempting to show that the ancient Chinese worshiped the God of Noah and of Israel. The authors assemble evidence from ancient writings, the Chinese language, ancient Chinese beliefs about God, and…
Alexander Dugin, the man sometimes called “Putin’s brain,” outlines a “fourth political theory” in a book of that title. Communism and Fascism have collapsed, and liberalism, the final twentieth-century ideology, turned into libertine postmodernism as soon as it triumphed. The collapse of modern ideology opens space for what modernity excluded,…
You can hear Beeson Divinity School Dean Timothy George interview me about Gratitude: An Intellectual History on the Beeson podcast .
Isaiah 63:10-14 reviews Yahweh’s history with Israel. He saved them through the “angel of His face,” lifted them up from the sea and carried them (like the daughter of Pharaoh rescuing Moses from the Nile). He put His Spirit “in the midst” ( qereb ) of Israel. But they rebelled,…
Writing at the New Yorker , Dexter Filkins argues that America’s withdrawal from Iraq left the Iraqi Prime Minister with freedom to destroy the country: “When the Americans invaded, in March, 2003, they destroyed the Iraqi state—its military, its bureaucracy, its police force, and most everything else that might hold…
James Jordan teaches the first course of Trinity House’s 2014-15 year, an August course on the book of Genesis. Click here for information and registration.
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