Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Although the events are, of course, not perfectly parallel, Luke in his gospel intends us to connect Jesus’ birth from the womb and His re-birth from the tomb. Luke 1:27 introduces us to Joseph and in verse 30 we learn that his betrothed wife was named Mary. An angel appeared…
The apostle Matthew is also known as Levi son of Alphaeus. While not much is said about this man, the few things that are told us are significant. Matthew in Greek is Matthaios and comes from the Hebrew name Mattithiah, or Mattith-Yah, "Gift of Yah(weh)." Matthew’s other name is Levi,…
Theologians often speak of "special" and "general" revelation, or of "natural" and "supernatural" revelation, or of "word" and "deed" revelation. While there are many worthwhile insights in these discussions, particularly in the discussions in Cornelius Van Til’s Introduction to Systematic Theology , I have not found any that satisfied my…
Ezekiel’s 430 Years In Ezekiel 4, the prophet is told to begin his ministry by setting up a model of Jerusalem and lying on his side and prophesying against it. He is to do this for 430 days, a day for a year. 390 days are against "Israel," and 40…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
The End of Jehoiakim’s Reign We have seen that Jehoiakim rejected Jeremiah’s prophetic warnings at the beginning of his reign. Let us now make a year-by-year survey of his reign down to its end. In the spring of 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish. In the summer, he…
Showing page 261 of 309
Showing page 5 of 43
This scene, like the scene that opens Act 3, shows Hamlet encountering a woman who in his mind has betrayed him. Again, he has been sent for, and probably suspects that it is another setup like the one with Ophelia. He has just come from the play, ready to drink…
FO Matthiessen described Melville’s Pierre as “an American Hamlet,” a novel that attempts to “translate” Shakespeare into 19th-century American life. In part, this is a matter of Melville matching characters and plots: “Lucy’s pale innocence fails Pierre as Ophelia’s did Hamlet; the well-named Reverend Mr. Falsgrave’s cushioned voice of worldly…
Derrida, famously, challenges what he calls the metaphysics of presence. What is challenging is not the reality of presence as such, but the notion that we can arrive at some pure presence of a thing, a moment, a self that is unmixed with anything other than itself. A pure instant…
Culler offers an example from Nietzsche that provides an excellent example of the ju-jitsu of deconstruction. Nietzsche argues that causality is not something given, but is the product of a rhetorical operation, a chronological reversal ( chronologische Umdrehung ). I feel a pain, and go searching for a cause of…
At the beginning of his book on Deconstruction , Jonathan Culler notes that critical theory, seen “as an attempt to establish the validity or invalidity of particular interpretive procedures,” is profoundly indebted to New Criticism: This movement “not only instilled the assumption that the purpose of literary study is the…
All page numbers are from the Heany translation. The central focus of the first two fights is Heorot, the mead-hall of Hrothgar. The mead-hall is the focus of a complex of imagery. (The last fight has a similar origin, as Beowulf’s hall is destroyed by the dragon. The house is…
Showing page 1884 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
