Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…
The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…
In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…
These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…
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B eowulf reflects the tensions between the Christian culture spreading throughout Northern Europe and the pagan cultures into which it came into conflict. The poem has its place within this clash of civilizations in the first 500 years AD. It is a product of the history of missions. The Germanic…
SERPENT KING Among other things, Hamlet is a dramatic reflection on philosophical anthropology: What is a man? and What are the conditions of human experience and existence? This is related to the theme we explored a few weeks ago under the heading of “action”: What are the rules and guidelines…
Mark is known for the understated irony of his gospel, but there is a large-scale irony overarching the book that is worthy of Sophocles. Readers know from the first verse of the gospel that Jesus is Son of God, and that title is used periodically through the gospel by the…
Mark is known for the understated irony of his gospel, but there is a large-scale irony overarching the book that is worthy of Sophocles. Readers know from the first verse of the gospel that Jesus is Son of God, and that title is used periodically through the gospel by the…
What characterizes the Renaissance sensibility of the self? Two things, perhaps: First: not the playing of roles, but the consciousness of playing roles, the consciousness that creates an ironic distance between role and role-player. Richard II is entirely expressed in his assigned role; Henry V seems conscious that he is…
New Critics, Feminists Phenomenology; Reader-Response critics Need no apology. There are Formalists of Russia, Structuralists of France. Give Archetypal Critics More than a glance. Marxists are strange birds, Like Speech-Act Theorists. And yet there’s no doubt Which theory is Queerest. Diaologic critics And Deconstruction Both in their own way Love…
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