Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
One of the major themes of the book of Acts is that Christ’s servants follow in His footsteps. For instance, if we compare the lives of Jesus and Paul, we find that each engaged in several years of travelling and preaching. Each set his face toward Jerusalem. In each case…
(This continues a discussion of the Biblical and Assyrian chronologies, begun in earlier posts. You can click on the category, "Biblical Chronology," to see the previous posts. Was Ahab at Qarqar? Allis writes: "According to his Monolith Inscription, Shalmaneser III, in his sixth year (854 B.C.) made an expedition to…
I am not infrequently asked for advice on how to implement the kinds of things I’ve discussed in Rite Reasons and in my book The Sociology of the Church. To that end I’m providing in this essay some nuts and bolts that grow out of more than ten years of…
The first commandment given in the Levitical sacrificial legislation has to do with the animals appropriate to sacrifice: "When any man of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of cattle ( behemah ), from the herd or the flock" (Lev. 1:2). Cattle alone were…
In the first week of November, the voters of the state of Washington were asked to approve or disapprove physician-assisted suicide. This has led to a good deal of comment on the issue of euthanasia in the press, and provokes the following reflections. 1. From a social policy standpoint, the…
We come this month to one of the most pernicious problems in the reconstruction of Ancient Near Eastern chronology, the problem of the Assyrian King Lists. We cannot proceed further with our survey of the chronology of the kings of Israel until we remove this roadblock from our path. We…
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Iain Provan doubts that Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes . One of the “striking” bits of evidence is “that many of the later passages in Ecclesiastes appear to be written from a non-Solomonic point of view (i.e., from the perspective of the subject rather than the ruler, e.g., 5:8-9; 8:1-9).” It’s a…
More thoughts on Ecclesiastes, stealing, as always, from James Jordan . The image of “shepherding wind” has a particular application to the king, who is the shepherd of flock of Israel. Solomon recognizes that ruling a kingdom is like trying to shepherd wind, which is of course impossible for human…
Some additional thoughts about the role of the “remnant” in Israel’s history, which supercede earlier posts on the subject. 1) The word “remnant” in the OT normally refers to the whole of Israel that survives a judgment, rather than to some sub-division of Israel that remains faithful during a period…
Christopher Dawson, who died in 1970, was one of the leading historians of the twentieth century. A devout Roman Catholic, hededicated his career, and some 25 books, to understanding andexplaining history, particularly Western history, from aChristian perspective. One little book, Christianity and the New Age, provides a glimpse of thewisdom…
As if anyone cares, here are some unfinished and amateurish comments on “what I think of postmodernism.” 1) First, it is helpful to distinguish, as many writers do, between postmodernism and postmodernity. The latter is a cultural/political mood or condition, referring to movements in architecture, film, and other arts that…
Somewhere in his blog discussion of Brian McLaren’s Generous Orthodoxy , Doug Wilson indicated that McLaren considers inerrancy a sell-out to modernist foundationalism. To support this, Doug pointed me to this quotation from John Franke’s foreword to McLaren’s book: “In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the foundationalist impulse produced a…
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