Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When God created Adam, He gave him both a vision and a responsibility. The big vision was the Dominion Mandate. The more specific calling was to cultivate and guard the Garden. God also told Adam about the gold of Havilah, which was good and beautiful (that is how the Hebrew…
After the death of Jan Hus (1369–1415), his successors, the Hussites, began to develop his thoughts on the theology and practice of the Church, particularly on= the question of the lay chalice. This time, however, it was not a question of whether this should be permitted at all—after all, this…
Imagine a friend of yours got involved in a commune, one of the really crunchy ones that does their own farming and such along with poetry nights and music and art. They’re pretty good at all this, actually. They’re using some really interesting permaculture practices at the communal farm, the…
Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, is one of the more well-known typologically dissected passages in the Bible. But just for the sake of dotting “i”s, here is a quick rundown: The promised son’s appearing was awaited a very long time (Genesis 12:4; 15:2–3; 16:16; 17:17; 21:1–5;…
A Narrative Sermon on Luke 22:24-46 As Luke walked through the rain toward the corner house he was apprehensive. That surprised him. He knew all along that this was the climax of the process—that he would have to present his work to these men before it could be copied and…
In 2004, an article by Slavoj Žižek appeared in Psychoanalytic Review entitled, ‘What Can Psychoanalysis Tell Us About Cyberspace?’ One of the answers that Žižek offers is that cyberspace creates an environment within which the consumer gets to play in a world where there is no God. In his use…
Showing page 5 of 309
Showing page 38 of 43
Timothy Furry’s Allegorizing History is a careful, engaging study of the Venerable Bede’s understanding of history, and of biblical hermeneutics. But perhaps the book’s greatest interest comes at the end, in a more theoretical conclusion, where Furry draws on the work of Frank Ankersmit to argue that history-writing is invariably…
Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s contribution to Trinity and Salvation is on the Trinity and music. Fitzgerald overstates when she called about “musical refutation” of heresy, but her analogies are illuminating. She points to chords as vestigiae Trinitatis : “Each note of the major triad has its own specific relationship with the other…
According to Frederick Ahl ( Metaformations , 18), we have an irrefutable syllogism to demonstrate that puns aren’t found in serious poetry like the Aeneid: “Vergil is a great poet. Puns are not the stuff of great poetry. Therefore Vergil cannot be using puns.” Except that Vergil seems to do…
Typically, wings in the Bible are appendages of birds (Genesis 1:21), so much so that “winged-thing” (substantive of kanaph ) becomes a synonym for bird (cf. Genesis 7:14; bird is ‘oph ). Bird wings are mentioned in the rite for the ascension offering from birds (Leviticus 1:17). The earth’s four…
Encyclopedic Isidore of Seville was one of the most widely-read early Christian writers. His analysis of ancient mythology in Etymologies summarized and extended a tradition that combined several components: Etymologies of the names of gods; euhemerist interpretation of myths as enhanced accounts of historical events; and moral indignation at the…
According Thomas Laqueur’s 2004 Solitary Sex , masturbation wasn’t a major concern in sexual ethics until fairly recently. Stephen Greenblatt summarized the argument in a 2004 review in the NYRB : “Medieval Christian theologians . . . did have a clear concept of masturbation as a sin, but it was…
Showing page 550 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
