Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the Bible, fatness is such a blessing, that it is especially hard to understand why wicked men are permitted to enjoy such a state. It requires a theodicy and faith in God. Thus: “For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek . They are…
[fve]http://vimeo.com/71901553[/fve]
The allusion to the Exodus story is contained in the first words of Deuteronomy 14:1 — “ye are the sons of Yahweh your God” — as well as in 14:2 in the use of the technical term translated “treasured possession,” “His own possession,” “peculiar people,” “precious people,” and so forth.…
I have argued that Deuteronomy 14:1-21 is an independent literary unit that applies the Third Word to the lives of Israelites from the time of Moses and Joshua. In this short pericope, Moses suggests broad and deep meaning by means of literary allusion to the stories of the creation and…
In his recently republished The New Creation , the late, delightful Herbert McCabe defends the priesthood of the plebs as roundly as anyone could want. Citing Hebrews, he claims that "there is an essential difference between the Christian community and the community of the Old Law, or any other religious…
Augustine famously prayed, “Our hearts our restless until they rest in You.” True indeed. Being creatures, we inherently sense our ontological poverty—our innate condition of dependence—and are compelled to find a sense of security. And it is also true—as Augustine’s own narrative painfully illustrates—that one of the things we most…
Showing page 190 of 309
Showing page 4 of 43
Some of this repeats notes from last week, but then moves beyond. WHAT ABOUT ISRAEL? The ringing affirmations of chapter 8, that those who are in Christ cannot be lost to Christ leads directly into Paul?s discussion of Israel in chapter 9. He is not beginning a new topic. He…
I am indebted to Peter Roise for the following NT Wrightian comments. In the OT, the name “Baal-zebub” occurs only in 2 Kings 1. But the name reappears as a title for Satan in the gospels, when the leaders of Israel accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the…
What’s with all the up-down talk in 2 Kings 1? The Angel of Yahweh sends Elijah to “ascend to call” the messengers/angels of Ahaziah (v. 3), and Elijah’s message is that Ahaziah will never “come down” from the bed where he “ascended” (v. 3). That oracle, including the “come down”…
I’ve posted a number of times on Cusa in the past, and the following builds on notes and outline that I posted in Febrary 2004. NICHOLAS OF CUSA This is a continuation of the earlier essay on Renaissance and modernity. To keep my assessment of the Renaissance under control, and…
The following is a more extensive version of a post from February 2004, under the same title. INTRODUCTION My thesis is developed over against a widespread conception of the Renaissance as the beginning of the modern world, the beginning of secularism and humanism. I am not an uncritical fan of…
For reasons that I’ll detail in a subsequent post, I’m a considerable fan of Nicholas of Cusa. I was unhappy to come across this from William Cavanaugh: “The origin of the modern concept of religion can be seen clearly in the thought of two fifteenth-century Christian Platonist thinkers, Nicholas of…
Showing page 1978 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
