Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
It seems to be old news, but I was unaware of it until recently. Australian academics argued that mothers should be allowed to terminate the life of a newborn child. [i] Why would they promote such an idea? Because before the child is born it is not always possible to…
This is the second of two essays introducing Pascal’s Wager. Click HERE for Part 1. In “The Pop Star and the Mathematician” I gave an overview of the apologetic approach commonly called Pascal’s Wager. In that Wager, 17 th -century French mathematician Blaise Pascal argued that the choice between Christian…
This is the first of two essays aiming to introduce the reader to Pascal’s Wager. The second will address criticisms of the Wager. In the early 1990s, a perennially popular British pop star was interviewed on British television about his very public evangelical Christian faith. “What if,” the reporter asked…
Matthew 13 is about secrets. In this chapter, Jesus teaches eight parables and tells the disciples that they reveal the secrets of the kingdom (13:11). And much like Samson who both tells riddles and is himself a riddle that the reader must solve, so Jesus not only tells secrets but…
Click HERE for part One. THE TEXT AS TABERNACLE Creation – Initiation – Genesis (1 Samuel 17:1-11) The gathered armies not only remind the reader of Ebal and Gerizim, but also of the very reason that Israel was established (Creation) , set apart from the other nations by the circumcision…
What to do with Job’s Final “Friend,” Elihu Elihu is a strange character, at least in the sense of how and where he appears in the book of Job. Why does he not appear with the other three “friends?” Does his argument differ from any of the first three who…
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In Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre , Girard admits that Hegel’s analysis of the master/slave relationship, especially as mediated through Kojeve’s Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (which emphasizes the role of desire), helped shape his understanding of mimetic desire and…
Steven Smith, who teaches law at the University of San Diego, explains how rhetorical appeals to “equality” obscure rather than illuminate public debate. Citing a Harvard Law Review article by Peter Westen (“The Empty Idea of Equality”), he observes that everyone is for equality if it is defined as “like…
Janowski ( The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources ) traces modern doubts about vicarious substitution back to Kant, who argues that guilt, being an “intrinsic personal feature” cannot be transferred. Guilt is not like a financial debt, which can be paid by someone else, but, Kant…
In his superb essay in The Suffering Servant: Isaiah 53 in Jewish and Christian Sources , Bernd Janowski argues for a “place-taking” interpretation of Isaiah 53. The Servant takes the place of the people to bear their sins. Along the way, he notes some important nuances of the passage, especially…
Jesus’ death delivers not just from the curse of the law but from the bondage of law itself. Because of Jesus’ death, those in Christ are no longer “under the law.” How does that work? In Jesus - God and Man , Pannenberg offers the following explanation. Jesus was charged…
In his contribution to The Words of the Wise are like Goads (Eisenbrauns, 2013), Russell L. Meek explores the intertextual connections between Ecclesiastes and Genesis. He shows that: “(1) Qohelet relies on the language used to describe the Garden of Eden to describe his own building projects; (2) Qohelet borrows…
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