Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the 48th year, the third month, and the fourteenth night, while I slept in my bed, I was taken in vision to Xanadu and set upon a high hill. Looking to the west, I saw a large building, surrounded with gardens and fountains, walks and gravestones, and a bell…
‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others) 1 claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend…
Part 2: The Enoch Factor Back in Open Book 21 we discussed "The Enoch Factor." Because that was several years ago (May 1994) and many people have begun reading this letter since that time, we shall return to the subject here and expand what we wrote at that time. After…
Day 6. The sixth day provides the creation of land animals and of humanity. As we saw above, the second day spills over to the first half of the third day, for only at that point did God say that it was good. Similarly, it seems that the fifth day…
During the past two decades, the "quest of the historical Jesus" has entered a new phase. The first incarnation of the quest was rudely shaken by the publication of Albert Schweitzer’s classic Quest of the Historical Jesus , easily the most devastating and funniest work of New Testament scholarship ever…
At the 1997 Biblical Horizons Summer Conference, the Rev. Jeffrey Meyers presented a series of remarkable lectures on the gospel of Mark. Among his many insightful comments, he suggested that the second gospel continues where the first gospel ends; Matthew ends with Jesus saying "Go" (Matthew 28:19), and Mark’s shows…
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If you’ve been at Trinity for any length of time, you’ve noticed that many of us kiss each other during the passing of the peace. Why do we do that? The short answer is that the Bible commands it. Five times Paul closes a letter with the exhortation to “greet…
In an interview in the March 17 issue of World , Duke’s theologien provocateur Stanley Hauerwas expresses sympathy for the view that killing to protect the innocent is allowable, but refuses to let his sympathy budge him from his pacifist convictions. It is never right to kill “to prevent another…
The puzzle of the incarnation is often posed as “how could the infinite become finite?” It’s the wrong question. The Son is infinite in all his attributes - His wisdom, power, goodness, truth. But He is not infinite-without-qualification. He is not infinite in the sense that He has no bounds…
In his recent book on resurrection in Judaism, Jon Levenson notes that the objections to resurrection in the modern world usually came from outside religious traditions. Some took an “extreme” position that presupposes “atheism and thus regard nature and its laws as eternal and absolute.” “Religious liberals” take a more…
The one thing that is “not good” in the original creation is Adam’s loneliness. And how does God go about addressing that imperfection? He puts Adam into deep sleep, tears out a rib from his side, closes up the flesh, and builds a woman from the rib. The solution to…
My friend Peter Roise has repeatedly encouraged me to read the work of the Asia Times Online columnist who writes under the pseudonym “Spengler.” I’m glad he has, because Spengler is well worth reading. He writes with a historical awareness and philosophical depth rarely found among newspaper columnists. Whatever his…
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