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

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John

Engaging John, Engaging One Another

The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 30, 2014
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Leviticus

Zoemics

Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 29, 2014
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Isaiah

God in the Dock

Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 24, 2014
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Baptism

Recreated in Four Dimensions

Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 22, 2014
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Matthew

The Least Of These

Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 2014
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Galatians

Paul and the Troublers of Galatia

Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 15, 2014

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Noah’s nakedness

John Bergsma and Scott Hahn offer a compelling defense of a “maternal incest” view of the story of Noah’s nakedness in Genesis 9 (JBL 124:1). They reject a “voyeurist” interpretation of the story. They find more to recommend a “paternal incest” view of the story, pointing to the parallels between…

May 28, 2005
Economics

Economics of abundance?

George Gilder suggests in Telecosm that economists study scarcity rather than abundance because the former is measurable, and the latter approaches infinity (and hence zero price): “The economists’ focus on scarcity stems from the fact that shortages are measurable and end at zero. They constrain an economic model to produce…

May 27, 2005
Science

Darwin and evil

In his 2001 book, Darwin’s God , Cornelius Hunter argues that the theory of evolution was less a solution to a scientific problem than a solution to a moral, theological, and religious problem: the problem of evil. How could one rationally hold to the existence of a good God in…

May 27, 2005

Not One and Many

Is the Trinity a solution to the “problem of the one and many”? I think not. It is less a solution than a subversion of the problem itself. In Trinitarian theology, “one” no longer means what “one” means in the traditional problem of the one and many. If it does…

May 27, 2005

Dynamic theism

Rhetorically, many of the recent attacks on “classical theism” gain a foothold by characterizing classical theism as presenting a Hellenistic, static, and immobile God very much at odds with the dynamic, very Live God of Scripture. It is time to challenge this rhetorical move, and reverse this charge. Those who…

May 27, 2005
History

Decline of war

Gregg Easterbrook, a regular source of counter-intuitive insight, summarizes recent studies that show a decade-long decline in war around the world (TNR, May 30): “Five years ago, two academics - Monty Marshall, research director at the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University, and Ted Robert Gurr, a professor…

May 25, 2005

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