Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
After Elijah’s battered and depressed howling in the wilderness it must have seemed like the new prophet came eating and drinking. Which is a pattern we see again in the New Testament—John is explicitly identified with Elijah (Luke 1.17, Matthew 11.14), howling the truth in the wilderness that the people…
Reading Robert Conquest’s biography of Stalin 1 has opened new lines of meditation on Paul’s command in Colossians 3:9. But before turning to that, let me briefly indicate what Paul is not saying. He is not saying that there is no such thing as righteous deception, such as Jael practiced…
You won’t find wild lions today in Israel. But lions used to range much more widely than they do now, and in biblical times they were a menace that shepherds in Israel had to contend with. David did as a shepherd boy, and Amos—who “ was among the sheepbreeders of…
I would like to remedy a flaw for English speakers in the book of Genesis. A flaw that may seem innocuous, but we must remember where the devil lives...in the details. If we are to fear the Lord, it behooves our translation committees to ensure that the fearfulness of God…
While reading at my son’s baseball game this week, a mom from our school approached me and asked if I was reading Dante. I wasn’t, but our sons are both reading Divine Comedy in their sophomore literature class, so it was a reasonable question. What unfolded was a quick conversation…
In the first two essays in this series, I addressed the question of how the nations would learn about Israel’s Torah, in the second essay especially emphasizing the aesthetic aspects of Israel’s testimony. For we naturally wonder: How would people in Mesopotamia or Egypt, not to mention the rest of…
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Basics of the biblical symbolism of birds 1)Birds were created on Day 5 of the creation week, along with swarmers of the sea, i.e., fish. Earlier, Elohim had formed earth into a three-decker house, firmament above, earth beneath, waters under the earth. He fills the firmament on Day 4 (with…
A highlight from the latest edition of Mars Hill Audio . If you're not a subscriber, shame on you.D.C. Schindler explains the significance of the classical claim that actuality is prior to potentiality. It means that potential is limited (and also unleashed) by the particular thing that a thing is.…
Thomas Aquinas ( ST I-II, q. 100, art. 5) compares the role of law in human communities with the role of divine law in the commonwealth of men under God: “just as the precepts of human law direct man in his relations to the human community, so the precepts of…
In an essay in a Festschrift for Daniel Block (available here ), Jason DeRouchie wants to teach us to count to ten, as in Ten Commandments. He examines the Hebrew cantillation signs, discourse features, stylistic elements of the Ten to settle which of the various numbering systems is preferable. One…
The "shadow" of sacrificial, tragic mythos, writes David Bentley Hart (in an essay on the First Word in I Am the Lord Your God ), "falls across the philosophical schools of antiquity" (63). Ancient philosophy wasn't, in short, a systematization of obvious common sense, but of ancient common sense. Which…
In the second volume of Robert Jenson’s Systematic Theology (2001), he discusses the Ten Words. His treatment of “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is profoundly important. Sexuality is the intersection of sensuality and reproduction. Sensuality is “the sheer fact that the subject is drawn to an object; it is captivation…
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