Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Inspired by our recent podcast on Christmas and Advent music recommendations, we offer here a list of excellent recordings that are sure to enrich your Advent and Christmas season. Praetorius: Mass for Christmas Morning Paul McCreesh with the Gabrieli Consort and Players Amazon | Spotify | Apple Music 2. Christmas…
In the year 1483 in the city of Nuremberg, the leaders of the renowned Saint Lawrence Church were seeking to redesign their altar, and above the table where the priests presided over the eucharist, they wanted new art installed above the prestigious Krell altar. What they decided on took everyone…
The consequences of disobedience start with exile from the garden of God and the Tree of Yahweh, but they do not end there. They cascade down through the structure of the dynastic order. Everything which had previously been given in the Kingdom of Elohim is either taken back or curtailed…
Parallelism: A Course Correction If you have ever studied Hebrew poetry, you have probably heard its basic poetic feature described as “parallelism.” Hebrew poetry is not metered, it does not rhyme, it does not employ many of the common poetical tropes, but its distinctive (and almost universal) feature is commonly…
In The Crown and the Courts , David C. Flatto traces the development of the idea of judicial independence in Jewish commentaries on the Scriptures – particularly Deuteronomy 17 – from the Second Temple and early rabbinic periods. These periods roughly span 400 BC to 300 AD. Flatto does not…
A curious feature of the Infancy Narratives in the Gospel of Luke is the naming of John the Baptist. When the angel appears to Zechariah, he is instructed to give his promised son the name John (Luke 1:13). On the day of John’s circumcision, Luke tells us that “they [presumably…
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Constantine says that some created things “possess wonderful properties, and the full apprehension of which is very difficult. Like hot springs. Or “the fruit of the olive-tree and the vine,” which “deserve especial notice; the one for its power of renovating and cheering the soul, the other because it ministers…
Thomas Madden offers a contrarian analysis of American and Roman empire in his recent book, Empires of Trust . Most empires in history, he says, “have sought to build their power in whatever way they can, making war on their neighbors when it seems advantageous and continuing to do so…
In another part of his oration, Constantine analyzes Virgil’s famed Fourth Eclogue, which Christians often took as a pagan prophecy of Christ. Constantine believes that it’s a deliberate prophecy, but one he deliberately obscured for fear of persecution: “these words are spoken plainly and at the same time darkly, by…
Constantine (of all people) provides a neat little analysis of the violent ontology of polytheism is his Good Friday oration, which Eusebius appended to the Life of Constantine : if the dominion of these [created] things, numberless as they are, were in the hands, not of one but of many,…
The First Things web site today posted some of my biblical-theological reflections on missions and culture: http://www.firstthings.com.
Of course Hebrews is written to Hebrews, not to Greeks. But there are suggestive echoes of the proem of the Odyssey in the opening chapters of the letter. The first words of the letter, polymeros kai polytropos , remind me of Homer’s first description of his hero - polymetis ,…
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