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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Deuteronomy

Allusive Torah

In the first part of this essay, I argued that the story of the covenant is what unifies and grounds the laws in the book of Deuteronomy. In the third section of this essay, as part of my argument that Deuteronomy 14:1-21 forms a distinct pericope, I claimed that these…

by Ralph Allan SmithJuly 22, 2013
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Economics

So You Wanna Be Rich?

Paul ends 1 Timothy with convicting warnings about the temptations of wealth and the danger of pursuing wealth. Godliness involves contentment and gratitude for the basics – food and clothing (1 Timothy 6:8). To reinforce the point, Paul reminds Timothy that we came into the world without anything, which is…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 2013
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Catholicism

The Festival and the Mass

Like Marx himself, the Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre was a firm believer in the dictum that “the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism,” though he dissented from Marx’s prior claim that the criticism of religion is essentially complete. He includes a vicious, sarcastic, Marxist diatribe against the…

by Peter LeithartJuly 15, 2013
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Theopolis News

Biblical Horizons Summer Conference

This week, Trinity House fellows James Jordan, Jeff Meyers, Rich Bledsoe, and Peter Leithart will be lecturing in Niceville, Florida, at the Biblical Horizons Summer Conference. Fore more information, check the Biblical Horizons web site.

by Peter LeithartJuly 15, 2013
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Isaiah

Combustible God

Fire seems to be a motif in Isaiah 6. The chapter opens “in the year that king Uzziah died,” and we know that Uzziah died a leper because he tried to burn incense in the temple against the law of God. And in this context, in the year king Uzziah…

by Daniel StanleyJuly 10, 2013
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Biblical Studies

Rehabilitating the Quadriga

According to the medieval theory of the "Quadriga" or the "fourfold sense" of Scripture, each passage of Scripture has four dimensions of meaning. Protestants generally cast a suspicious eye on this "method" of reading. That's a mistake. It's a handy guide to the questions we should always ask as we…

by Peter LeithartJuly 8, 2013

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Day of Wrath (Romans 2)

What about taking “day of wrath” in Romans 2 as AD 70? Some arguments: 1) Dunn lists the verses that use similar phrases for “wrath and indignation” and “tribulation and distress,” and most of them are about historical judgments on Israel. There’s a cluster of uses in Deut 28:55ff, which…

November 7, 2003
Theology

Intellectualism and Voluntarism both arise

Intellectualism and voluntarism both arise from the same theological error: from the assumption that there is some realm that is independent and autonomous. This is most obvious with intellectualism: For intellectualists, things have indepdendent value that God recognizes and evaluates. Voluntarists are, however, making the same error. They assume that…

November 6, 2003

Studebaker on Pauw

Steve Studebaker writers in the Scottish Journal of Theology (56:3) about Edwards’s trinitarian theology, and includes an extended critique of Amy Plantinga Pauw’s treatment of Edwards’s incipient “social trinitarianism.” According to Studebaker, Pauw’s analysis only works if one assumes that the history of Trinitarian theology can be sketched out as…

November 5, 2003

The Olive Tree (Romans 11)

In the same issue of JSNT, Philip Esler examines ancient oleiculture to illumine Paul’s use of the olive tree image in Romans 11. When he describes branches being grafted into an olive tree, Paul refers to a common practice. But the normal practice is to graft cultivated olive branches onto…

November 5, 2003

Acts 20:20

Jerome Neyrey has an interesting article on Acts 20:20 in the current issue of JSNT. He examines the cultural background to Paul’s use of the phrase “in public and from house to house” by examining various expressions in Greek and Latin writers that correspond to modern “public” and “private.” These,…

November 5, 2003
Literature

Modernity

To what extent is modernity merely a recovery of the tragic? Tragedy, to my knowledge, simply didn’t exist in the medieval world. Drama revived late in the medieval period, but tragedy was reintroduced by the Renaissance. In Shakespeare, the tragic is set in a larger Christian comic setting, with profoundly…

November 5, 2003

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