Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Why there is more to Jephthah than meets than eye It was not that long ago that I realized the Jephthah-story and the Jesus-story were basically the same story. Sounds crazy, I know. But here is a one-paragraph synopsis of both: The people of God have gone their own way,…
G.K. Chesterton famously said that the Gospels don’t reveal Jesus’ mirth. It’s true we never catch Jesus laughing. But can we believe He never did? I don’t think so. Laughter is human, and Jesus was fully human. Jesus promised that those who mourned would laugh. He mourned; would He not…
Matthew 2 has all the elements of an exodus story. There’s a murderous king, who slaughters Jewish babies. There’s a infant who will be Israel’s future deliverer, saved from the murderous king so He can later return to save His people and lead them to the Promised land. There’s an…
The calendar of Israel was primarily theological, centered on commemorating the salvific acts of God, but also agricultural, celebrating the creation-restoring effects of those salvific acts. The feasts of the first month celebrated the reviving of the world in the Spring, and typified the cutting off of the Savior in…
The chiastic shape corresponds to the shape of human life. This should not surprise us, because we are made in the image of God, and God is manifest in Word and Spirit. If we are living epistles, our lives will look a bit like the literary shape of the books…
Back in January, Venkatesh Rao wrote a fascinating post on the Ribbonfarm blog, discussing different forms of models of narrative. Engaging with Ursula LeGuin’s talk ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ , Rao explores her contrast between the (male) ‘hero narrative’ and the (female) ‘carrier-bag story’, and suggests a third…
Showing page 83 of 309
Showing page 40 of 43
A former student, Matt Dau, commented on reading David Bentley Hart’s description of postmodernism and the sublime that it seemed very similar to the courtly love tradition - the dominating attraction of one’s life is the inaccessible beauty of the beloved. Judging from Holsinger’s work, that analogy is no accident.…
Holsinger argues ( Premodern Condition ) that Bataille, despite writing a somme atheologique was not so much attacking or parodying Thomism as critiquing Thomas with resources taken from inside the medieval Catholic tradition. As an illustration of his “intellectual open-mindedness vis-a-vis the tradition of Catholic theology,” Holsinger cites the exchange…
Bruce Holsinger gives this summary of the conflict between “traditional” Thomists and the advocates of nouvelle theologie during the early decades of the 20th century: “What infuriated . . . the [traditionalist] neo-Thomists about the nouvelle theologie was what they perceived as its historical relativism, which in turn derived from…
In what sense did Jesus fulfill the covenant of works? He is clearly the last Adam (Rom 6), and reverses the work of the first Adam. But unless we assume that Torah is a straightforward republication of the covenant of works, then any claims about Jesus fulfilling the covenant of…
Foucault is normally classified as a radical postmodern, but there is a strong “conservative” thrust to his work on the prison and other “disciplinary” mechanisms of the early modern period. His attention is mainly on the social, architectural, and political mechanisms that break down traditional solidarities and thereby isolate individuals…
One of the key themes of Foucault’s work is an effort to uncover the social conditions of modern individualism. He suggests that the idea that “the model of a society that has individuals as its constituent elements is borrowed from the abstract juridical forms of contract and exchange” is only…
Showing page 1824 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
