Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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To one of his servant, Shakespeare’s Macbeth says, “The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!” Davenant’s says, “Now, Friend, what means thy change of Countenance?” And for the wonderful surging lines in Macbeth 2.2.58-61 (including “the multitudinous seas incarnadine”), Davenant substituted the much weaker “can the Sea afford/ Water…
Michael Dobson notes ( Shakespeare: An Illustrated Stage History ) that the restoration of drama in 1660 was not really a restoration but a re-creation, involving “a transformation of the London theatre, carried out by royal warrant” tht “forever altered the relationship between drama and the state, the design and…
In his Theory of the Leisure Class , Thorstein Veblen notes that it is good if it shows that “the wearer can afford to consumer freely and uneconomically,” but beyond that should “make plain to all observers that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor.” Elegant…
In the Edinburgh Review notice regarding the publication of Bowdler’s Family Shakespeare (1821-22), Francis Jeffrey, Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, praised the edition for meeting the needs of decent people everywhere: “Now it is quite undeniable, that there have been many passages in Shakespeare, which a father could…
when the theater was taken seriously. Douglas Lanier writes, “On may 7 [1849] Edwin Forrest and William Macready, long-time Shakespearian rivals, mounted competing productions of Macbeth in New York City, Forrest at the Broadway Theater, Macready at the Astor Place Opera House. Forrest, an American actor of populist style and…
when the theater was taken seriously. Douglas Lanier writes, “On may 7 [1849] Edwin Forrest and William Macready, long-time Shakespearian rivals, mounted competing productions of Macbeth in New York City, Forrest at the Broadway Theater, Macready at the Astor Place Opera House. Forrest, an American actor of populist style and…
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