Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a recent article in Biblical Horizons , I argued that the imagery of James 1:21 alludes to baptism, and particularly to baptism as an ordination and incorporation into the holy priesthood. This understanding of baptism as ordination to priesthood is not, I have since discovered, original, but in fact…
He will be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace will be between the two of them (Zechariah 6:13b). A prime difficulty in the interpretation of this verse is the antecedent of the pronoun "them." A number of alternatives have been offered. Some suggest that the "two"…
Like certain kinds of music, the unchanging rhythm of Aquinas's Summa gets into your bones. Read a few sections and it begins to run through your head. You start drumming your fingers, humming, swaying gently to the rhythm of Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, Videtur-Sed Contra-Responsio, “It seems-On the contrary-I answer.” The only…
The Book of Revelation is a gold mine of liturgical information. The various hymns and exclamations in Revelation have always been used in Christian worship. As I have been studying Revelation this year, it occurred to me that make a complete hymn out of the various hymns in the book.…
In the book of Revelation we find a triad of Strong Angels, and another triad of Other Angels. The purpose of this essay is to explore the Biblical background of these two sets, and thus fill out their meaning. The first triad of angels we encounter in the Bible comes…
In Revelation, the term aggelos means messenger, of course, but with a special emphasis on messenger as covenant administrator. This is immediately obvious from the fact that the angels are constantly acting to enforce the covenant one way or another: sealing people, bringing judgment, calling for repentance, etc. They are…
Showing page 272 of 309
Showing page 5 of 43
Back to reflections on post-modernism: It seems that Freud, not Nietzsche, is the really grandfather of the movement, though, not unexpectedly, some sons and grandsons efface his memory and resist his influence (not all, of course).
On courtly love: The basic shift is from the ancient and early medieval view that eros sapped and vitiated virtus to a belief that eros was a condition of the possibility of virtus and valor. This is, as Lewis said, a seismic shift in sensibility, one that we still do…
Jouette Bassler’s 1984 article “Divine Impartiality in Romans” ( Novum Testamentum ) present structural arguments for saying that the section beginning in Rom 1:16-18 runs through the middle of chapter 2. This is evident from the repetition of the verb prasso in 1:32 and again in 2:1-3; thus the center…
It’s not at all accidental that postmodernism takes its rise in the mid-1960s. Bloom wrote the first draft of the anxiety of influence in 1967, and revised it over several years before its initial publication in 1973. Derrida’s annus miraibilis was 1967, which saw the publication of Speech and Phenomena…
It’s not at all accidental that postmodernism takes its rise in the mid-1960s. Bloom wrote the first draft of the anxiety of influence in 1967, and revised it over several years before its initial publication in 1973. Derrida’s annus miraibilis was 1967, which saw the publication of Speech and Phenomena…
Turns out that Harold Bloom’s “anxiety of influence” is just another variation on the same set of themes that Derrida is obsessed with — the son’s murder of the father. For Bloom, the son is the “strong poet” who resists the influence of his predecessor/father in order to carve out…
Showing page 2176 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
