Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…
Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…
In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…
Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…
Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…
Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…
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In an illuminating review in TLS (June 2), Felipe Fernandez-Armesto summarizes the evidence that the Spanish Civil War was, as it turns out, thoroughly Spanish. He debunks the myth that Spain never participated in European cultural movements, pointing out that “liberal” is derived from a Spanish word, that Spain was…
The library of Dr Daniel Williams (Presbyterian minister, 1643-1716) in London is selling its copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, and to mark the occasion Peter Lindenbaum examines not only the Folio but the library (TLS June 2). The Folio is not the only (modest) surprise in this library, whose original…
David Martin comments (TLS, June 16) on Maurice’s Bloch’s view that ritual crushes human creativity: “No doubt that is how the Jesuits (with their Spiritual Exercises) turned into such scientifically incurious stay-at-homes, how the Mormons built a city in the desert, and the Muslims created an empire stretching from Spain…
INTRODUCTION After Josiah, Judah unravels rapidly. Josiah’s son is imprisoned by Pharaoh Neco (23:33), and before long Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonians are invading, destroying the temple and the city (24:1). It is Good Friday for Israel. THE TEXT “Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned…
In the account of Josiah’s reform in 2 Kings 23, there is frequent reference to “defiling” (vv 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 20). Josiah defiles by scattering the ashes from a destroyed Asherah pole, by filling holy places with bones, by burning bones on altars. It’s not enough…
2 Kings 23:12: The altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of Yahweh, the king broke down; and he smashed them there, and threw their dust into the brook Kidron. Josiah was one of the great heroes of the faith, providing an example not only…
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