Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Should anthropological categories and tools be applied to Judaism? Seems a narrow and academic question, of interest to maybe ten people on the planet. It's one of the many virtues of Howard Eilberg-Schwartz's 1990 The Savage In Judaism to show that the question is a central one in the origins…
Christians are often accused of being obsessed with sexual sin. Why can't two people, of whatever sex, do whatever they please in the enclosure of their own room? Who is hurt if a guy wants to get off looking at tantalizing pictures and videos on his computer? What's the big…
“No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house” (Mark 3:27 NKJV). Much commentary on the Revelation seems oblivious to its allusions to the Pentateuch (although there are many that do enlighten us…
Leigh M. Trevaskis's 2011 monograph, Holiness, Ethics and Ritual in Leviticus , is an outstanding contribution to the study of Leviticus. His main thesis is directed at the world of Old Testament scholarship, in which there is a consensus that the ritual laws of Leviticus 1-16 come from a school…
Richard Ounsworth begins his Joshua Typology in the New Testament with an excellent discussion of what he calls "ontological" typology, which he handily summarizes in four points. Typology involves "correspondences between real historical events, personalities, institutions, etc. described in scripture," a correspondence that is discerned (not created) by the reader…
Baylor University Press is sponsoring a reception to celebrate the official release of Peter Leithart's Gratitude: An Intellectual History . The reception will be held at the First Things offices in Manhattan on Thursday, March 6, at 6 PM. For more details, click here .
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Unlike many theorists who discuss the gift, Jacques Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 193) does not believe that is should “drown” everything, especially markets: “That would not only be impossible but also very harmful, for a great society (statistically speaking) needs the state and market apparatus. The…
Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 40-41 ) remarks on the fact that “in modern society, children are the only people to whom one can give without even being tempted to do an accounting.” Many (he says) give to children and don’t expect them to make any return…
Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 47) wonders about the curious “abnegation” of parents who convince their children that Santa, not they, made and gave that mountain of presents under the Christmas tree. One theory: “It’s as though the parents are trying to prove to themselves that they…
Jacques Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 37 ) asks why we wrap presents only to discard the wrapping. It is a “potlatch” gesture, a gesture of excess, “an utterly gratuitous extra.” Further, “it hides what is in circulation, thus demonstrating that what counts is not the hidden…
In his work on Geschenk Nach Form Und Inhalt , written i 1914, Wilhelm Gaul laid out many of the parameters for future discussion of the gift. Harry Liebersohn ( The Return of the Gift ) quotes this impressive passage: “What is striking at once about the ‘modern’ gift is…
A few quotations from the opening pages of Karl Bucher’s Industrial evolution; . Economic theory begins from the assumption that human beings have an “economic nature,” and that “From this economic nature a principle is supposed to spring, which controls all his actions that are directed to the satisfaction of…
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