Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In my previous two posts, I looked at aspects of Psalms 93, 95, 96 and 98 that declare Yahweh, the divine King, to be the world’s own Creator. In my next post, I plan to argue that the creation theology of the sub-section constituted by Psalms 93-100 contributes to the…
Ethika Politika has published a fascinating interview within which the French Catholic philosopher Fabrice Hadjadj discusses his recent work on the subject of sexuality. While there are many points where our lines of reasoning as Protestants will sharply diverge from Hadjadj’s, there is also much that is deeply perceptive in…
For anyone in Shakespeare’s audience who knew the real story of Macbeth, his play must have been surprising. Shakespeare changed so many important details of the historical Macbeth’s life that had Raphael Holinshed, the main author of the most popular history of the British Isles in Shakespeare’s day — Holinshed…
I started looking at a sequence of psalms on divine Kingship (Psalms 93-100) in my last post, part of a series looking at the Old Testament’s witness to Yahweh’s exercise of absolute mastery over his cosmos. I am not trying to “prove” a doctrine of creation ex nihilo directly from…
Most of the time I believe that dread is wise, anxiety righteous, fear a holy thing. It sounds ridiculous, but bear with me. There are days when fear seems to be not only a rational response to my circumstances, but a moral duty. After all, being a grown-up means responsibility.…
Get the Psalm 36 Translation here Psalm 36 begins with several translation problems. First, the first word in the actual psalm, as it is found in the English text, is the word "oracle." This word also begins the second verse in the medieval Massoretic Hebrew text, which is our basic…
Showing page 155 of 309
Showing page 39 of 43
Leviticus is the oilest book of the Bible. The Hebrew shemen is used 42 times (6 x 7); the closest competitor is Numbers, with 34 uses. The uses of shemen are clustered. Leviticus 2 uses the word 9 times, all with reference to the preparation of the tribute offering (…
Why do so many Egyptian statues have broken noses? Julia Wolkoff summarizes the answer of Brooklyn Museum curator Edward Bleiberg. Noses protrude, and so are more apt to be knocked off accidentally, but the pattern is too consistent to be accident. Erosion could account for some, but not all. Bleiberg…
Some snippets from Philip Turner's Christian Ethics and the Church . The premise of Turner's book is well summarized by a passage he quotes from Sabina Lovibond's Ethical Formation : "The ethical, let us say, pertains to what people learn to value through immersion in a community acquainted with ideas…
Levitical offerings send a "soothing aroma" ( reyach nichoach ) to Yahweh. Israel needs to produce good smells because her sin is noxious to Yahweh. When Israel rebels, His "nose burns." By slaughtering a substitute animal and turing it to smoke, Israel soothes Yahweh's hot nose. But that can't be…
“Spiritual reading” is usually associated with patristic, monastic, and medieval modes of reading. It's fruitful, however, to shift the focus and ask what the Spirit has to do with our reading. The Spirit is the enlivening breath of God, the water of God who makes us into a fruitful garden.…
Liberalism is "in origin primarily a refusal of ecclesial power." So write John Milbank and Adrian Pabst ( Politics of Virtue , 31). In refusing ecclesial power, early modern political theorists renounced the arrangement of Latin Christendom. The "first polity knowing no bounds and truly based upon the rule of…
Showing page 46 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
