Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What do you think of the way "creation science" uses the "second law of thermodynamics" to argue that human society will become more and more depraved, and that the universe is running down? Creation Science is not monolithic, and so it would be unfair to say that everyone working in…
From time to time we receive questions that are interesting, and that other people would also be interested in. I'll [address] two such questions in this issue [and the next]. I recently made a will which, in the event that my wife does not survive me, grants my eldest son…
As we go from Old Testament chronology to New Testament chronology, it will be a good idea to examine a deep-seated myth that is profoundly intertwined with Biblical Christianity. I have in mind the myth that there is in the Bible such a thing as a collection of books called…
Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal gave prominent recognition to a book called Who Wrote the Bible? The book was a popularization of the famous "Documentary Hypothesis," which claims that the Pentateuch was not the work of Moses, but was a (rather incompetent) pastiche of contradictory sources written much…
The epistle of James has long presented dificulties for New Testament scholars. Its seemingly moralistic tone, its apparent inattention to theological concerns, its defense of "justification by works" all have made it dificult for interpreters to discern its compatibility with other New Testament books. Luther’s dismissal of James as an…
Why the Lamb? But why the lamb? We have seen that the bull was the offering for the sins of priests, especially as they represented the nation before God in His house. Wasn’t Christ the greatest of all men? Wasn’t He the Great High Priest? Should He not rather be…
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Discussing Bentham’s vision of the panopticon, Foucault notes that Bentham’s vision inverts the relationship of visibility and power. Traditional power was made visible in various sorts of symbols - crowns, robes, rituals; the powerful displayed their power in public, and this public display was the basis of their power. In…
Foucault draws an intriguing political contrast between the “rituals of exclusion” that arise with lepers and the “disciplinary confinement” that constituted the response to the plague. Leprosy and its rules of “rejection, of exile-exclusion” produces a “massive, binary division between one set of people and another”; by contrast, the plague“called…
At various points in Discipline and Punish , Foucault notes how monastic discipline provided a model for early modern society forms. Factories were compared to monasteries not only in their organization but also in the spiritual dimension of factory management. Time-tables and rigorous time-keeping, as David Landes and others have…
The “roofless factory” of some contemporary capitalist theory and practice reverses one of the basic drives of modern economic life. Bringing all workers into a single location under a single roof was one of the main features of the early modern factory system, and provided not only the economic benefit…
Rome was a model society for Europeans throughout the early modern period. But the Rome that served as a model differed from era to era and from writer to writer. Foucault writes: “the Roman model, at the Enlightenment, played a dual role; in its republican aspect, it was the very…
Some oddities of the narrative of John 21. Peter, we’re told, has stripped, apparently to make it easier to do his fishing. When he hears that Jesus is on the shore, he puts ON his outer robe and throws himself into the sea. As a practical matter, this doesn’t make…
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