Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). The famous definition of faith with which the eleventh chapter of Hebrews opens has received a number of different interpretations. The crux of the problem is the interpretation of the words translated in…
This essay is an exploration of one element of the final of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John. My thesis is that the Gospel of John answers the issue of "friendship" being a homoerotic category. It challenges the "Greek Way of Love and Friendship" 1 It is indeed the…
"And I also way to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it" (Matthew 16:18). Matthew 16:13ff. has historically been one of the most oft-cited passages of Scripture. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was used…
Matthew 8-9 records three clusters of miracles, interspersed with snatches of Jesus’ teaching about various aspects of discipleship. Just as the Sermon on the Mount displays the authority of Jesus’ Word in teaching, these chapters display the authority of Jesus’ Word over sickness, uncleanness, the creation, demons, and death. In…
The association of women and wells in the Scriptures has long been noted by theologians, a symbolism closely connected to marriage which begins in Genesis and climaxes in Revelation. There is a lesson drawn in the water of wells that I’d like to explore, but before that I must trace…
Of course, since the Israelites had agriculture, Solomon was not paleolithic as that term is used today. But "paleo" is simply a prefix meaning old or previous , the opposite of "neo." In that sense, I wonder if we might understand Solomon better if we interpret his statements and riddles…
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In the introduction to his Meditations on the Sacraments , Karl Rahner describes what he calls the “Copernican revolution” in sacramental theology. To explain the shift in perspective, he asks how Christians have generally experienced the sacraments. According to Rahner, “the average Christian” believes “both externally and internally, human life…
S tewart Alsop begins his book on Washington, DC, The Center , by observing that DC wasn't always the center: “during the long prewar political doldrums, the era of the doughface Presidents, it was no true center of power. Nor was it in the decades between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore…
J B Kennedy's The Musical Structure of Plato's Dialogues is a kind of Bible Code for classical philosophy. In a 2010 article in Apeiron (“Plato, Pythagoreanism, and Stichometry”), Kennedy lays out the basic argument. Kennedy's argument begins from the observation that Greek prose writers, like poets, composed their works in…
S ome gleanings from CJ Labuschagne's Numerical Secrets of the Bible on the Psalms. On Psalm 23: “the three words in the phrase ki a atta immadi, ‘ for you are with me' (23:4), are situated in the mathematical center of the text, with 26 words preceding them and 26…
B ack in the 1990s, seminaries seemed to be thriving. A 1994 cover piece in Christianity Today reported , “In 1992, the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) reported a 9.8 percent enrollment increase over 1991, the largest single increase ever recorded. There was a full-time-equivalent enrollment of 46,400 students in…
H enri de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum is a densely detailed study of the changing punctuation of the medieval theology of the triple body of Christ. “Body of Christ” has a threefold significance: His historical body, in which He lived, died, and rose again; His sacramental body, the bread of the…
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