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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Fundamental to any cultural scheme is the organization of the two basic coordinates of human life, space and time. A social and cultural world is at least a particular imaginative and physical ordering of these coordinates. Israel?s life as a people was patterned spatially by the sanctuary that was placed…
There is something of a Longfellow revival going on recently, with the publication of the Library of America edition of his collected poems a few years ago, the first time a complete collection has been published in some time. Longfellow was eclipsed during the heyday of modernism, but in the…
Thomas S. Schreiner has some intriguing comments about Paul’s descriptions of his suffering for the gospel in Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ . For example, he cites 2 Corinthians 2:14, where Paul gives thanks to God as the one who “always leads us to death in Christ and…
Thomas S. Schreiner has some intriguing comments about Paul’s descriptions of his suffering for the gospel in Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ . For example, he cites 2 Corinthians 2:14, where Paul gives thanks to God as the one who “always leads us to death in Christ and…
In one of the great essays on Great Expectations , J. Hillis Miller claims that Pip exemplifies a consistent view expressed in Dickens?s hero, which is equally a philosophical view of identity that tends toward existentialism and a closely related view of modern social order” ?Dickens heroes and heroines have…
Richard Gaffin?s work always makes for challenging and edifying reading, and his inaugural lecture as Charles Krahe Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary, published in the Fall 2003 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal is no exception. Three points were especially revealing: 1) In discussing the relationship…
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