Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Part 2: Parallels Between Genesis 3, 1 John, and Revelation 2 Following part 1 that delineated the connectivity between 1 John 1-4 and Genesis 1-5, more evidence for the parallel between Genesis 3 and 1 John is found in the book’s parallel to the message to Ephesus in Revelation 2.…
Part 1: Proposal to Read 1 John Considering Genesis 1-6 Introduction Many authors have recognized that the prologue of 1 John is related to the same author's Gospel and to the first line of Genesis. However, commentators have not noticed that John alludes to the themes in Genesis 1-6. The…
I should begin by declaring my bias: I believe that the book of Colossians was written by the apostle Paul around AD 60, during the Roman imprisonment recorded in Acts 28. Douglas Moo offers a detailed defense of Pauline authorship, including dating the book in AD 60 during Paul’s Roman…
There’s a rule of on-line life: don’t feed the trolls. There’s a kind of person on social media who is desperate for attention and so provokes arguments just so he can be at the center of the fray. He’s called a “troll.” The common advice: don’t feed the trolls. Don’t…
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—-among whom we all once lived in the passions of…
On Thursday, September 8 th 2022, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died. She was our longest-reigning monarch; the magnitude of her presence in the United Kingdom’s life defies most superlatives. The first of her fifteen British prime ministers was Winston Churchill; she appointed her final one, Liz Truss—who was born…
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During the Second Temple period, the Talmud says, "the temptation for idolatry was slaughtered" (quoted in Haberthal and Margalit, Idolatry , 2). Then the fight returned, with Maimonides. Now, though, idolatry was a contrast-concept to a new conception of God. Halberthal and Margalit summarize: "The central effort of philosophical religion…
The First of the Ten Words speaks to the question of whom we worship: We are to have no other gods before the face of Yahweh. The Second Word had to do with how we worship: We are to approach God as He commands us to approach Him. The Second…
There are Ten Words, but they are grouped in several different ways. The first two commandments stand out from the rest. Only in the first three commandments does the Lord speak in the first person (FW Farrar): “I am Yahweh your God . . . thou shalt have no other…
A little over a year ago, I wrote the following in a post reflecting on the Hebrew term tabnit, used in Exodus and Chronicles to describe the heavenly "pattern" of the sanctuary: "Deuteronomy 4:16-18 uses the word five times, not of a 'model' or 'plan' but of likenesses made according…
Franz Rosenzweig didn't buy Maimonides philosophical critique of the Bible's anthropomorphism. In 1928, he wrote a short essay on the topic and, in the summary of Leora Batnitzky ( Idolatry and Representation ) he "argues that the tendency to rationalize away biblical anthropomorphisms . . . is both dishonest and…
In Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice , Ivan Strenski recounts an epochal shift in the study of religion, and of sacrifice in particular, that took place in the France of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, the "lions" of the field of religion were…
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