Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Mystical theologians are often unguarded, extreme, un-nuanced, pressing to the edges of heresy, sometimes beyond. Still, the mystics are worthy of study. Why? Many reasons. Unlike some late medieval and post-Reformation dogmaticians, mystical theologians are often instinctively and richly Trinitarian. Historical-critical approaches to Scripture left mystical theologians virtually untouched; mystics…
Portia of Belmont is a “lady richly left,” as Bassanio says of her in the first Act of The Merchant of Venice . Plus, she’s beautiful and wise. Suitors clamber to Belmont in hope. Her father knew it would be so, and in his will set up a fairy-tale test…
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In the nature of the case, “the” Christian meditation on Deuteronomy 14:1-21 cannot be written. Meditation offers too many possibilities, opens too many doors. There is not one and only one correct set of associations for a Christian to consider when thinking of Deuteronomy 14:1-21. We could, for example, consider…
Having retold the story of the cumulative sin of Israel leading to the great atonement on the cross, Paul then reemphasizes that, just as both Jew and Gentiles were locked into sin and judgment, now they are both justified by faith: Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.…
Deuteronomy 14 is full of allusions to events of Israel’s history and other portions of Scripture. What would an Israelite learn by mediation on these allusions? The answer, I believe, is at least fourfold. Faith, Worship, War For the ancient Israelite first hearing Moses’ sermon, or perhaps hearing it read…
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In her contribution to Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages , Beverly Mayne Kienzle summarizes Hildegard of Bingen's understanding of heaven and of the new Jerusalem. For Hildegard, “Jerusalem represents the vision of peace and salvation, the final resting place for those who perform good works in this life.” She…
In a 1998 article in VT, Giancarlo Biguzzi argues that John describes two different forms of idolatry in the book of Revelation. The first is the traditional idolatry of idols; the second is the beast idolatry that is the focus of the book. John “speaks explicitly of that given to…
“Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.” The comparisons are not random, argues Aldo Regalado in Bending Steel : “By measuring Superman’s powers against those of the bullet, the train, and the skyscraper, these phrases offer clues that…
In a recent article, Loren Stuckenbruck makes this striking comment about the heavenly worship of Revelation 4: “John’s vision of a ‘Christ-less' worship in chapter 4 is so different from chapter 5; indeed, it is different from the visions described in the rest of the book in which Jesus plays…
The last time we had a Rodin revival was during the 1960s, writes Jed Perl. He seemed to capture the revolutionary 60s “ambiguous, contradictory, and conflicted” relation to tradition. Rodin is enjoying something of a revival again today, and Perl thinks it is for much the same reasons.” Despite his…
Near the end of her book on The Heavenly Book Motif , Leslie Baynes notes the “negative attitude about writing that Plato’s Socrates expresses in the Phaedrus ” is absent from early Christianity. For early Christians, “Words are ephemeral and disappear as soon as they are spoken, but writing remains.…
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