Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…
In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…
The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…
Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…
In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…
A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…
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Saussure argues that syntagmatic relations are more like multiplication than addition. Adding - eux to desir is not putting together “independent units”; rather the two “form a product, a combination of interdependent elements, their value deriving solely from their mutual contributions within a higher unit.” At another level, we can…
Would Saussure have agreed with Barr’s challenge to the notion that there is a difference between Greek and Hebraic mentalities evident in the differences between the languages? Barr appeals to Saussure at one or two points in his book ( Semantics ), and his project as a whole is reliant…
The English civil war, that is. Peter Harrison ( ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment ) traces the notion of comparative religious study to the confessional disputes in England, and the “diachronic pluralism” of the English monarchy: “As Locke put it, the kings and queens of post-Reformation England…
At a couple of points in his Course , Saussure suggests that the “primary characteristic of the spoken sequence is its linearity.” It is a “chain,” a “line.” I find this questionable, but he makes interesting use of the image: “In itself, it is merely a line, a continuous ribbon…
A “sign” in Saussure’s terminology consists of a signification (a concept or idea) and a signal (the “sound pattern” associated with the idea). He suggests some analogies: “This unified duality has often been compared with that of the human being, comprising body and soul. But the parallel is unsatisfactory. A…
Saussure associates langue with collective social realities; it is the system created by society and existing, almost identically, in every member of a linguisitic community. He associates parole , in turn, with individual expressions within the system. The system is impervious to change: “changes are never made to the system…
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