Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Bible reader that is mindful of patterns, is aware of the creation markers of Noah's flood. The Earth is deformed and is made into a ball of water, which then is made new with new promises and obligations to the New Adam (Noah) and his offspring. One of the…
Exposing Nakedness “Picasso did not paint for the eyes but for the gut. He painted for the gut that the eyes might be opened.” I was at ease, and he broke me apart; he seized me by the neck and dashed me to pieces. (Job 16:12) One only has to…
For preventing the unvaccinated people in Mississippi from being a burden on their friends, teachers, or waiters, and for making them beneficial to the public. Dr. Jonathan Swift It is a melancholy object to those who walk through a great southern college town, or travel throughout Mississippi, when they see…
Throughout the world, governments are aggressively pushing COVID vaccines. Some have instituted mandates or vaccine passports. Many are losing patience with the unvaccinated, even proposing that they have forfeited the right to certain health services . The unvaccinated have become deplorables—the undeserving sick. This COVID regime has been bolstered by…
Although nowadays gap theories are associated with dispensationalism, it was not always so. In the nineteenth century, scholars from a variety of backgrounds (Anglican, Reformed, and proto-fundamentalist) seem to have become fascinated by gaps. If you are not familiar with what I am talking about, this piece will acquaint you…
What kind of father gives his son a stone when he asks for bread, or a serpent when he asks for a fish? The answer is, the Heavenly Father! Jesus rarely stated the obvious, and this particular question in His Sermon on the Mount concerning the fatherhood of God is…
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Students of Ancient Near Eastern religions and cultures have typically assumed that the peoples of the ANE operated, like ancient Israelites, with a dichotomy of holy and profane. Beate Pongratz-Leisten doubts this, both for Mesopotamia and for Israel. The notion that this dichotomy is a universal religious structures goes back…
K. van der Toorn has a 1989 article summarizing the purity system of ancient Mesopotamia. He describes purity rules as a form of temple etiquette. What makes something unclean is not that it is immoral but that it is displeasing in a particular setting, in this case displeasing before the…
Rivka and Moshe Ulmer summarize rabbinic teaching about charitable giving in Righteous Giving to the Poor . The book includes an overview of rabbinic literature in general before it gets to its main topic. Rich in quotation, the section on tzedakah examines the theological underpinnings of charity, the this- and…
Lida V. Nedilsky’s Converts to Civil Society is a sociological study of civil society in contemporary Hong Kong. But the use of the religious term “convert” is not accidental. Nedilsky argues that Christian conversion in Hong Kong opens up possibilities for other forms of voluntary association, both religious and non-religious.…
Ole Bjerg ( Making Money ) doesn’t believe the classic “commodity” accounts of the rise of money, found in both Adam Smith and Marx. Both posit an original barter economy that is made more efficient by the introduction of a commodity that is used as a medium of exchange. Bjerg…
Gerd Theissen’s contribution to The Depth of the Human Person sharply challenges mainstream views of Paul’s anthropology. It’s not that Paul’s theory is holistic rather than dualistic. That assumption is based on a faulty understanding of ancient anthropology. A holistic anthropology doesn’t necessarily imply a positive view of the body,…
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