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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When Aaron and his sons were ordained, they were washed, vested, and anointed (Leviticus 8:6-9). When Aaron approached the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement, he puts on linen clothes and washes (16:4). There is no anointing, he removes the garments of glory. The ordination rite goes in…
Faith is the discernment of things unseen. Faith looks for a city yet to come, not made with hands. To any visible arrangement of things, faith stands with Faust in his refusal of “Stay, you are so fair.” Faith says to every human construction, “Good, but not it .” Faith’s…
In a contribution to Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice , David Frankfurter analyzes several contexts of Egyptian religion on the way to a critique of the whole category of “sacrifice.” In some of these contexts, no animals were slaughtered; no violence done. In some contexts, though, animals were killed. He elaborates on…
Jonathan Klawans asserts in an essay in Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice that “symbolic action was an undeniably central feature of ancient Israelite culture” (114). As evidence, he points to passages in the Hebrew Bible that highlight the memorial function of rituals. Passover, Sukkot, Sabbath, circumcision, phylacteries are all presents as communicative…
In his treatise On Abstinence from Killing Animals , Porphyry states a principle of philosophical sacrifice: Different strokes for different deities. For “intelligible gods,” the best worship is “hymn-singing in words,” since “sacrifice is an offering to each god from what he has given, with which he sustains us and…
John Steven explains at Slate why the ceasefire in South Sudan, like many ceasefires, could well backfire” “The cease-fire is making it worse. Indeed, this uncomfortable truth isn’t even unique to South Sudan. Cease-fires almost always make a conflict worse, delaying political deals, prolonging the killing, and ensuring that the…
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