Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One of the major themes of the book of Acts is that Christ’s servants follow in His footsteps. For instance, if we compare the lives of Jesus and Paul, we find that each engaged in several years of travelling and preaching. Each set his face toward Jerusalem. In each case…
(This continues a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in earlier posts. You can click on the category, "Biblical Chronology," to see the previous posts. Was Ahab at Qarqar? Allis writes: "According to his Monolith Inscription, Shalmaneser III, in his sixth year (854 B.C.) made an expedition to…
I am not infrequently asked for advice on how to implement the kinds of things I’ve discussed in Rite Reasons and in my book The Sociology of the Church. To that end I’m providing in this essay some nuts and bolts that grow out of more than ten years of…
The first commandment given in the Levitical sacrificial legislation has to do with the animals appropriate to sacrifice: "When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of cattle ( behemah ), from the herd or the flock" (Lev. 1:2). Cattle alone were…
In the first week of November, the voters of the state of Washington were asked to approve or disapprove physician-assisted suicide. This has led to a good deal of comment on the issue of euthanasia in the press, and provokes the following reflections. 1. From a social policy standpoint, the…
We come this month to one of the most pernicious problems in the reconstruction of Ancient Near Eastern chronology, the problem of the Assyrian King Lists. We cannot proceed further with our survey of the chronology of the kings of Israel until we remove this roadblock from our path. We…
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The Economist's review of Thomas Lacqueur's The Work of the Dead highlights the shifts in our funeral customs over the past few centuries: “A large part of the book is devoted to the slow transition from churchyards to cemeteries, a story of changing sensibilities, epitomised by the gradual replacement of…
In his forthcoming collection of essays, The Ways of the World , David Harvey observes that “it is impossible on the ground and in the streets to see where nature ends and culture begins. imposing a dichotomy where there is none is a fatal mistake.” Geography is his great illustration…
Most readers and viewers of Hamlet take Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy as a meditation on suicide. In Hamlet, Protestantism, and the Mourning of Contingency , John E. Curran, Associate Professor of English at Marquette University, argues there are bigger things at work. Hamlet is opposing two ontologies, religious universes, moralities.…
Rhetoric is an ancient art. It was one of the main courses of study in ancient schools, along with grammar and logic. During the days of the Roman Empire, learning rhetoric was a path to power and prestige. Augustine, the great church father of North Africa, was trained as a…
The story of Jerusalem's deliverance from Sennacherib's Assyrian army, told in both 2 Kings and Isaiah, is an exciting account. It's a story worthy of Byron’s galloping verse, his medieval ballad. But still: So what? What does all this ancient history have to do with me, with my problems, with…
Why do we talk about patriotism in religious terms? asks Ivan Strenski (in a Library of Social Science essay): “For a student of religion what strikes one as odd is that we name the act of giving up one’s life for the sake of one’s nation, as a ‘sacrifice.' Why…
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