Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
While controversies over the writings of Paul continue in various corners of the intellectual globe, the word of God given through Paul and his scribe and all of the church’s interpreters and translators over the last two millennia is still readily available to the lofty and the lowly. Paul, as…
The second in a series of studies in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 22:30: A man shall not take his father’s wife, and shall not uncover his father’s wing (Hebrew: kanaf ). There are a number of unusual features in this law that mark it out from the previous context, indicating that it…
The texts of Christianity have been slowly at work, under the power of the Holy Spirit for 2000 years now. If we could be magically transported back into the world of two millennia ago, modern Americans would be shocked at the cruelty of that world. There was no concern for…
The Story of the Gadarene Madman is told in all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-37). Jesus ventures into a Gentile area when He passes over the Sea of Galilee. Upon disembarking from his boat, he is immediately met by a demon-possessed madman. Upon meeting Jesus, he…
Part 1 of a multi-part series of studies on Deuteronomy 22:30-23:8. Eric Auerbach, in his classic work on Western literature, devotes his first chapter to contrasting Homer with the Bible. Of Homer, he writes of the “need of Homeric style to leave nothing which it mentions half in darkness and…
Trinity House Fellow James B. Jordan will be a speaker at an International Conference on Biblical Symbolism that will be held in Seoul on Monday, May 27 in 2013. He will address "The Importance of Biblical Symbolism and Symbolic Interpretation of the Bible." The conference will have three other speakers…
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B rad Littlejohn presents a number of criticisms of my account of penal substitution in Delivered from the Elements of the World . I won’t attempt to address all of them, but focus—at once too briefly and at tedious length—on Brad’s central substantive question, which concerns guilt and Jesus’ guilt-bearing.…
I ’ve been reading commentaries on Revelation 1:12–20, learning a great deal, but getting increasingly frustrated. Even the best commentators sometimes fall into the twin faults of contemporary interpretation—atomization and abstraction. Let’s take the “robe” that Jesus wears. Many have suggested that the robe designates Jesus as a priest, but…
I n his Anchor Bible commentary on Revelation , Craig Koester says this about John's initial vision of Jesus: “ The figure’s appearance defies easy description: hair that is white like wool or snow, eyes like a flame of fire, a voice like rushing water, a face like the sun.…
I n a contribution to Harold Bloom’s collection of essays on Macbeth , Robert Lanier Reid observes that ” Interpreters of Macbeth have focused almost exclusively on the first murder, the killing of a king in Acts 1–2, as the basis for understanding the play—its social, psychological, and metaphysical meanings.…
“W hat purpose do the Weird Sisters have for confronting the hero—or what is their masters’ purpose, if they in fact have such masters?” asks Susan Snyder in her contribution to Macbeth . She doesn’t think the play gives a clear answer, and she adds that the play doesn’t explain…
P eter Milward writes of “meta-drama” in Hamlet and Macbeth in his contribution Shakespeare’s Christianity . He argues (unconvincingly) that Shakespeare had in mind the situation of recusant Catholics in England. Milward’s analysis of the biblical features of the play is more compelling. He notes that “already from the opening…
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