Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
We've all heard it, too often to count. The Apostle Paul was a misgynistic homophobic pro-slavery authoritarian, probably a repressed homosexual himself, the first Puritan - Puritan here defined as "someone who cannot sleep if someone in the world is having fun." To call this a caricature is too generous.…
Some of our forefathers believed in reading/singing the psalms in order. Today, when the psalms are even used at all, they tend to be used randomly, though sometimes tied to a church calendar or to the pastor’s sermon. The Bible does not bind us to any particular practice, but there…
". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…
The story of Hezekiah’s illness and recovery is familiar to every child who has attended Sunday School. Informed that he would die, faithful King Hezekiah pleaded in tears for a longer life. God heard his prayers and saw his tears, and promised fifteen more years. As a sign that He…
When viewed as an allegory of biblical history, the controversial third act of Danny Boyle’s gripping sci-fi adventure is transformed from an illogical divergence into a blinding revelation. The following analysis contains spoilers for the movie “Sunshine.” The Creation Week is the elementary type that orders everything God has said…
In my last post , I told you the story of my current desire to understand philosopher D.C. Schindler’s metaphysical work. With this post, I start in to the venture. I begin by reflecting on what it is to be a thing. This matter always makes me laugh, and makes…
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“Being lonely is a lot more worrying for your health than obesity,” writes Philippa Perry . She draws on research by John Cacioppo that shows that for the elderly “Feeling isolated from others can disrupt sleep, raise blood pressure, lower immunity, increase depression, lower overall subjective wellbeing and increase the…
Stephen Finlan ( The Background and Contents of Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors ) thinks that Paul mixes his metaphors: “Paul indicates that salvation is not free: ‘you were bought with a price’ (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). Here, the Christian gets a new owner: Christ. The death of Jesus functioned as…
Jacob Milgrom argued that the notion that Yahweh was appeased by sacrificial aromas is rare, and that the notion that Yahweh fed on sacrificial food was found only in “rare linguistic fossils” ( Leviticus 1-16 , 250). Finlan ( Paul’s Cultic Atonement Metaphors , 30) rightly protests: “Forty-two instances of…
Before assessing the Best Picture nominees at TNR , David Thomson reminds us what the Best Picture award is: “First of all, remind yourself that ‘Best Picture’ is not a certificate of value passed down by God. It is a construct, and a con, dreamed up by the American Academy…
Reviewing Colin Burrow’s Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity in the TLS , Michael Silk refers to Dante’s debt to Virgil, and then observes: “There is surely no counterpart to this in the case of Shakespeare - though one might perhaps consider it (Burrow himself doesn’t quite) in connection with Seneca.” He…
Tim Crane points out in his TLS review of John Caputo’s Truth that “Aristotelian” ideas of truth are in no way incompatible with the insight that there is a plurality of perspectives on truth: “to believe in truth in this [Aristotelian] sense is not to believe that there is only…
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