Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Building of the Temple Solomon began work on the Temple in the second month of his fourth year. This was the year 2993, a sabbath year. He finished in the eighth month of his eleventh year, the year 3000, also a sabbath. (1 Ki. 6:1, 38). This is said…
The Bible expresses its chronology not only in sequences of years, but also in sequences of sabbath years and jubilees. This enables us to make a cross-check of our chronology, and when we find apparent problems, to refine it. If our chronology is right, we should find some significant correlations…
Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative Sheffield, England: Almond Press, 1983. This volume is the ninth in the "Bible and Literature Series" under the general editorship of David M. Gunn. According to its author, who teaches Hebrew at the University of Maryland, the book is an effort to…
V. Propp’s classic work Morphology of the Folktale (University of Texas, 1968) argues that one of the basic structures of folk literature is "lack, lack liquidated." A king sets out to look for a wife, and the tale ends with a wedding. Often, the hero sets out on some business…
Luke’s gospel begins and ends in the temple. It opens with Gabriel’s annunciation to the priest Zacharias (whose name, appropriately, means "Yahweh remembers") of the coming of a forerunner. Zacharias is performing priestly service at the time. The book ends with the joyful worship of a new priesthood in the…
Last time we arrived at the year A.M. 3960 as the date for the inauguration of the New Creation through the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We also saw that this is most likely the year of Paul’s conversion. Fourteen years…
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Bacevich notes the connection between premillennialism and support for Israel, and goes on to suggest that this leads in turn to support for American militarism: “as a result of the Religious Right’s fetish for the Jewish state, the distinctive Israeli strategic style - the way that Israelis conceive of military…
Amnesty International is complaining toda that “President Obama is reinstating the same deeply-flawed military commissions that in June 2008 he called an ‘enormous failure.’ In one swift move, Obama both backtracks on a major campaign promise to change the way the United States fights terrorism and undermines the nation’s core…
Andrew Bacevich notes in his The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War that 9/11 did little to shift American foreign policy: “The shattered events of September 2001 challenged the Bush administration to build . . . a new world order, and it turned instinctively to Wilson. Indeed,…
Where does tyranny come from? Levinas and Simone Weil argue that it grows out of the decay of neighborliness and hospitality, and Hannah Arendt claims that it comes when the creative solidarity of political friendship and spontaneous political action are suppressed. True; but all these fail to deal with what…
A few quick takes from Daniel Siedell’s excellent God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Cultural Exegesis) : After pointing out that Eastern Christians prefer the flatness of icons to the realistic perspective of Western art, Siedell concludes that this should “remind us that flatness [in Eastern…
Rose again, criticizing the postmodern assault on reason: “The decision by the intellectuals that reason itself has ruined modern life, and should be dethroned and banned in the name of its silenced others, is comparable to the decision to stop small children, girls and boys, from playing with guns, pugnacious…
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