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Writing

Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Christendom

The Fundamentals of the Faith

Reflecting on the centennial of the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, Theopolis contributor Tim Nichols asked Dr. Leithart and me what the five fundamentals of the faith were today . His thoughts went something like this: Back in the early 20th century, in response to a ruinous drift away from the historic Christian…

by Jackson WatersNovember 26, 2025
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Matthew

Testimonium Negativum: Josephus, Matthew’s Gospel, and New Evidence for the Coming Christ

1. Introduction In this article, I delve into some parallels found in the scholarly analysis of two important literary works: the Testimonium Flavianum by Josephus ( Antiquities 18.63–64) and the Olivet Discourse in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 24–25). These texts have been at the center of countless academic discussions,…

by Jonathan SedlakNovember 18, 2025
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Genesis

Trauma and Glory: Overcoming Suffering with Joseph

Over the last twenty years, our American culture has created a culture of obsession over trauma. This could be a result of publications such as The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which explores the lasting effect on health that traumatic experiences can have. Or it could…

by Lindsey TollefsonNovember 11, 2025
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Uncategorized

Lips like a Thread of Crimson: Midrash on a Theme from the Song of Solomon

The Beloved celebrates the beauty of his Shulamite’s lips, describing them as “a thread of crimson” upon a mouth that is altogether lovely (Song 4:3). It were easy perhaps to pass by this all too quickly, passing it off, if we attend to it at all, as a kind of…

by Mark BriansNovember 4, 2025
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Culture

The Rule of the Incarnate

This article originally appeared at American Reformer on October 29, 2025. Reproduced with permission. Why the West Was Never Meant to Be Governed by Law Alone Back in the early nineties, I was in the candidate process for Undergraduate Pilot Training with the Texas Air National Guard, hoping to fly…

by Ronald DodsonOctober 31, 2025
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Deuteronomy

A Father’s Liturgical Logic: The Pastoral Aim of the Davidic Revolution

In his book From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution , Peter Leithart shows that David, the author of so many Psalms and the musician who trained choirs, instituted a musical and liturgical revolution of how the people of Israel worshipped. The liturgical revolution in turn was designed to…

by Ralph Allan SmithOctober 29, 2025
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Literature

Two Gentlemen

Some notes on Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona . 1) Garber has a long helpful list of the devices first used in Two Gentlemen and repeatedly used in later plays: a love triangle that leads one heroine to find refuge with a friar; a second heroine who disguises herself as…

January 17, 2008

The Text is a Picture

Charles Lock comments, “Linearity of reading is the fundamental principle by which the text is established in modernity as a text. That is to say, when we read a text we do not see an image: the type and size of font, the disposition of words on the page, the…

January 16, 2008

Lower criticism?

Of John 8, Northrup Frye commented, “There is also the woman taken in adultery who has firmly established squatter’s rights on the beginning of John 8, despite the efforts of nervous editors, ancient and modern, to get her out of there.”

January 16, 2008

New Joshua

Cyril of Jerusalem wrote: “But Jesus, son of Nave, was a type of Him in many things; for when he began to rule the people, he began from the Jordan; thence also did Christ begin to preach the Gospel after He was baptized. The son of Nave appoints the twelve…

January 16, 2008
Media

Screen friends

The redoubtable Caitlin Flanagan has an insightful and funny review of Edward Kline’s biography of Katie Couric in the current issue of the Atlantic . Part of the review details Flanagan’s own “friendship” with the Couric of the Today show, but Flanagan characteristically goes beyond autobiography to explain Couric’s appeal.…

January 16, 2008

Wise numbers

In his introduction to the wisdom literature, Roland Murphy notes some of the numerological structures of Proverbs: “First, 1:1 has three names [Solomon, David, Israel], which have the numerological value of 375, 14, and 541, for a total of 930 . . . . this hint in the title of…

January 16, 2008

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