Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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Masudi’s 10th-century Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems gives the history of the world from Eden to the author’s own time. His account of early humanity is clearly drawn partly from Genesis, but other accounts are thoroughly mixed in. When God determined to create Adam as a “lieutenant on…
In his wise, wide-ranging contribution to Recent Developments in Trinitarian Theology , Christoph Schwobel argues that trinitarian theology necessitates a revision of metaphysical assumptions. “It is,” he writes, “one of the most significant discoveries of the classical disputes of trinitarian doctrine in the early church that the straightforward application of…
In his breezy review of Madonna’s career in Fame in the 20th Century , Clive James captures Madonna’s genius for self-reinvention. She “was called Madonna Louise Ciccone, but in her burning ambition for universal fame she didn’t want to rule out the large section of her potential audience that might…
The Ishmaelites who carry Joseph to Egypt are carrying “aromatic gum, balm, and myrrh” with them (Genesis 37:25), which are among the goods of the land that Jacob later sends to Vizier Joseph, not knowing he’s Joseph (cf. Genesis 43:11). This has several layers of meaning. As Jacob Hanby, a…
James Gleick’s NYTBR review of Vikram Chandra’s Geek Sublime places the book in the context of CP Snow’s “two cultures.” As programmer-turned novelist, Chandra crosses the cultures, and his book aspires, Gleick says, “to look deeply, and with great subtlety, into the connections and tensions between the worlds - the…
Justin Marozzi’s recently released Baghdad vividly recounts the glory and anguish of a city that was, for several centuries, considered the “most prosperous city in the world.” It’s name has been variously translated as “Gift of God” or “Founded by God.” Founded by the Abbasid Caliph Mansur in the eighth…
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