Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Building of the Temple Solomon began work on the Temple in the second month of his fourth year. This was the year 2993, a sabbath year. He finished in the eighth month of his eleventh year, the year 3000, also a sabbath. (1 Ki. 6:1, 38). This is said…
The Bible expresses its chronology not only in sequences of years, but also in sequences of sabbath years and jubilees. This enables us to make a cross-check of our chronology, and when we find apparent problems, to refine it. If our chronology is right, we should find some significant correlations…
Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative Sheffield, England: Almond Press, 1983. This volume is the ninth in the "Bible and Literature Series" under the general editorship of David M. Gunn. According to its author, who teaches Hebrew at the University of Maryland, the book is an effort to…
V. Propp’s classic work Morphology of the Folktale (University of Texas, 1968) argues that one of the basic structures of folk literature is "lack, lack liquidated." A king sets out to look for a wife, and the tale ends with a wedding. Often, the hero sets out on some business…
Luke’s gospel begins and ends in the temple. It opens with Gabriel’s annunciation to the priest Zacharias (whose name, appropriately, means "Yahweh remembers") of the coming of a forerunner. Zacharias is performing priestly service at the time. The book ends with the joyful worship of a new priesthood in the…
Last time we arrived at the year A.M. 3960 as the date for the inauguration of the New Creation through the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We also saw that this is most likely the year of Paul’s conversion. Fourteen years…
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Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is organized around caskets, bonds, and rings. Of these, the ring plot is the most baffling. After Portia (disguised as a lawyer) saves Antonio’s bacon, she demands that Bassanio hand over a ring as a way of showing his gratitude for her/his intervention. Bassanio got the…
A history of gratitude remains to be written. That it would be a worthwhile project, providing an important angle of vision into important developments in Western civilization, can be illustrated by a contrast of Oedipus and King Lear. As Catherine Dunn explains in her 1946 dissertation on ingratitude in Renaissance…
INTRODUCTION What are we up to in Moscow? The simple answer is that we are embarked on an experiment in Christian culture. Ephesians teaches us how we are to do this. THE TEXT “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in…
Dr. Sean M. Quinlan, an Asst. Prof. of History at the University of Idaho, has written an open letter to U of I President Timothy White in which he renews various charges lodged against Douglas Wilson, Steve Wilkins, George Grant, and me a few years back. It makes the insightful…
Much of the following is inspired by David Hart’s Beauty of the Infinite . Deuteronomy 14:23, 26: “And you shall eat in the presence of Yahweh your God at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the…
To many Christians, Reformed folk seem more than a little uptight about worship. Calvin left Geneva when the city council attempted to force him to adopt liturgical forms from the city of Bern, even though Calvin admitted he had little quarrel with the Bernese liturgy itself. Puritans made themselves odious…
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