Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
21. Under three things the earth quakes. And under four, it cannot bear up. 22. Under a slave when he becomes king, And a fool when he is satisfied with food, 23. Under an odious woman when she gets a husband, And a maidservant when she supplants her mistress. The…
We have looked at the prima facie evidence for a short chronology in Ezra-Nehemiah, a chronology that assumes that the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7ff. and Nehemiah is in fact Darius. This month we examine the argument against the short chronology. There is only one argument, and that is that the…
The Priestly Genealogy Jeshua the high priest, who returned with Zerubbabel, was not a young man at the time. We know this because his father, Jehozadak, was taken into captivity (1 Chron. 6:15). Thus was 50 years before the decree of Cyrus (2 Kings 25:18-22, by implication). Jehozadak’s father Seraiah,…
Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity . . . What? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990. Reviewed by Rev. Jeffrey Meyers. Reading Oden’s After Modernity . . . What? was tonic. There were passages that launched me out of my chair with a hoot to pace the office floor — of course, the…
Matthew records that Jesus "withdrew" to Galilee to begin His public ministry there after He "heard that John had been delivered up" (Mt. 4:12). Matthew’s typically matter-of-fact style veils the truly remarkable character of Jesus’ withdrawal. Matthew has been presenting Jesus as the Messiah, the Seed of Abraham and Son…
John Brown called this one of the most difficult passages in the entire epistle to the Hebrews, and Hebrews is no easy book. Several questions confront us as we read and meditate on these verses. First, in what sense did the Old Testament saints described in verses 4-38 not receive…
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E arl R. Wasserman ( Subtler Language ) observes that “Until the end of the eighteenth century there was sufficient intellectual homogeneity for men to share certain assumptions. . . . In varying degrees . . . man accepted . . . the Christian interpretation of history, the sacramentalism of…
“L aughter,” writes Indira Ghose, “stakes out an area of discourse as a game which follows its own rules” ( Shakespeare and Laughter , 106). She quotes Wittgenstein on game failures: “What is is like when people do not have the same sense of humour? They do not react properly…
D uring the 15th century, Boxley Abbey in Kent boasted a crucifix with a movable Jesus. It was able “to bow down and lifte up it selfe, to shake and stirre the handes and feete, to nod the head, to rolle the eies, to wag the chaps, to bende the…
J oel Harrington and Helmut Walser Smith summarize the interests of research into confessionalization under three headings: “Research on confessional identity has focused on three processes: the construction of confessional identity as part of early modern state building; the internalization of confessional identity as part of the larger process of…
T he Chronicler's description of the free-standing cherubim in the temple's Most Holy Place (2 Chronicles 3:10–13) is delightfully repetitive and complicated. The repetition is more obvious in the Hebrew, so I provide a woodenly literal translation: A. And he made in the house of the holy of holies two…
I magine that you have just been given a new technology that allows you to respond almost instantaneously to critics and opponents. Imagine too that you find yourself in a highly charged situation where attacks and counter-attacks are a regular occurrence. The temptation to use the technology to counter-punch is…
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