Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Platitudes are often sayings whose truthfulness is so apparent, so accepted, and so repeated that they are divested of their power and in fact become the object of ridicule. Their failure lies in their fame, and the contempt they invite is bred by their familiarity. To say that children are…
Click here to download the Translation Here we have the seven-fold Voice of Yahweh, bracketed by two sets of four lines about Yahweh. The central seven-fold Voice section uses "Yahweh" ten times, for a total in this psalm of eighteen usages of "Yahweh" (3 x 3 x 2). The psalm,…
As Adam and Eve walked to the Garden of Eden to meet with Yahweh on their first Sabbath they conversed about the origin and age of the earth. Adam: You know, honey, we spent a lot of time yesterday making preparations for this house, and we still have an awful…
Knowing His paths through Moses and David, in the darkness of the prophets we yet walk in His light. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted…
These days, to be “candid” is to be frank, honest, genuine. But the word didn’t always mean that. It used to be the name for a virtue that we don’t really have a name for anymore. Its obsolete meaning is “kindliness”: a disposition to think well of others, a tendency…
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Richard Finn begins his Almsgiving in the Later Roman Empire with a summary of the Sentences of Sextus , a Hellenstic Pythatorean work adapted to Christian use by Rufinus. According to the text, gifts of money, food, or clothing to the poor was “an activity which met with God’s blessing…
C. John Collins has observed that it is common to set Torah and the Wisdom books in opposition to each other. The former is covenantal and specific to Israel; Wisdom is based on observation of creation and history. The contrast is exaggerated at best, and in a 2o09 article is…
Cicero wanted to defend the reality of human freedom against the Stoics. But the issue of divine foreknowledge stood in the way. How could human choices be truly free if God knew those choices ahead of time? As Augustine summarized Cicero’s concern ( City of God , 5.9), “if all…
S tephen John Wright’s Dogmatic Aesthetics offers a dogmatic treatment of beauty using the work of Robert Jenson. Though Jenson hasn’t written a theological aesthetics, Wright is correct that Jenson’s work is shot through with aesthetic concerns: “Jenson’s theology is irreducibly aesthetic.” One of Jenson’s fundamental claims is that the…
B ig law is dying says Benjamin Barton in his forthcoming Glass Half Full . In fact, it’s dying four times over. There’s death from above, death from below, death from the state, death from the side. From above, large law firms have been huge and hugely profitable since the…
In his massive study of Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements , Louis Newman claims that the “Mosaic Books have never held a dominant place in orthodox Christianity; it is only among special groups that the Pentateuch has won adherence,” groups where “literal acceptance of the Code” was “a fundamental…
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