Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Book of Genesis contains eleven distinct markers readily acknowledged as the toledot formula. 1 Commentator Nahum Sarna counts the ’elleh toledot to be “…one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Book of Genesis”. 2 Among translations, the noun is variously translated as “generations” (ESV, KJV), “records of the generations”…
The answer that immediately comes to mind to the question in the title is Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah. He was conceived during the extension of life that God granted Hezekiah in response to his ardent prayer on his sick bed (2 Kings 20:1-11, 21:1). His reign is summarized in…
Back in 2019, on a whim, I sketched out a setting for a modern fantasy story: a single coffee shop that is simultaneously present in multiple cities throughout the world: “...you know the one. Books by local authors, brochures for a walking tour of the city’s outdoor sculpture, a poetry…
Peter O’Brien’s translation of Colossians 4:2 surprised me: “Persevere in prayer as you watch for the Lord’s return, and be thankful.” 1 What is surprising about that? Well, none of my English translations mentioned “the Lord’s return” — nor does the Greek text! Translated literally, the verse just says: “In…
I Natural Law This is a brief (well, briefer than it could be) first attempt at responding to a very small section of Stephen Wolfe’s recent book The Case for Christian Nationalism . It’s partial, deeply incomplete, and does not at all address the book as a whole; it is…
The scuttlebutt of the last hundred years would tell us that Albert Einstein was a horrible husband, Winston Churchill was a racist, Mother Theresa was a hypocrite, and Caravaggio a murderer. From Benjamin Britten’s boys to Gandhi’s girls, it can be depressing and confusing to hear about people of great…
Showing page 37 of 309
Showing page 40 of 43
Plays might be promoted as a kind of opiate of the masses: Mass entertainment that keeps them from more violent entertainments like rioting and pillaging. This could be problematic, if the entertainments were too heady for most people to follow. Thomas Heywood (1612) suggested that playwrights should “ayme . .…
How regulated was Shakespeare’s own theater? And for what reasons? Patterson highlights various reasons for closing or permitting theaters: audience composition, including the fear that a large collection of workers might be distruptive; public health; economic concerns; religious and moral concerns, especially Sabbatarian; and “a shifting and elusive imperative to…
Shakespeare’s fortunes in the US were, understandably, different from in England. Initially, Shakespeare was America’s most popular playwright, appealing to a wide sector of the American populace. Patterson notes that “by the end of the nineteenth century ‘Shakespeare’ had become a cultural icon, the property only of the ‘legitimate theater,’…
Annabel Patterson notes ( Shakespeare and the Popular Voice ) that contemporary critics, whatever their own political outlook, assume that Shakespeare was an advocate of Elizabethan hierarchy. This view, however, is a product of the 19th century. Dryden, Johnson, and others criticize Shakespeare for violating the conventions of his genre,…
By the 18th century, acting styles also invested Shakespeare with “courtly” virtues of control, dignity, stateliness. Dobson writes, “Shakespearian acting . . . in the decades following Betterton’s death in 1710, seems to have settled into a grandiloquent vein of static declamation, best exemplified by the stout James Quin (1693-1766)…
Dobson again: “after Charles II’s death in 1685 England would never again have another monarch with such an informed interest in the drama (or, mercifully, such a lascivious one), and deprived of royal patronage and protection the playhouses came under renewed attack from the moralists (led by the redoubtable clergyman…
Showing page 1785 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
