Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul writes to Jews, “You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?” (Romans 2:22b) The English translation “rob temples” makes readers think of pagan temples. There was only one Temple for Israel, so robbing more than one would indicate other temples are in view. And if the Jews wanted to…
Two offerings Humanity’s first vocation involves guarding and serving the trees that emerge from the ground (Genesis 2:15). God provides these trees to humanity for food. A serpent appears and tempts the couple to eat from a special forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity…
At the outset of the Torah (as Christians understand it), a triune God creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week. Why? What’s the connection between the three and the seven? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose?…
How relevant to the modern reader are the flying axe head of Deuteronomy 19:5 and the roof parapet of Deuteronomy 22:8? Indeed, how relevant were they to the daily lives of Israelites thirty-five hundred years ago? Suppose that accidental falls from rooftops were exceedingly uncommon in ancient Israel, or that…
1 For most of my life, the standing of the American church as a source of national social and political order was measured by reports from the front of the so-called “culture wars.” 2 Memory brings to mind battles over feminism and the ERA, so-called gay rights, the breakdown of…
But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel…’ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the…
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A trio of authors argue in the January 2004 issue of American Philosophical Quarterly that conscious desires are impossible. They begin with a distinction between beliefs and desires, showing that the difference has to do with the “direction of fit” with the external world. Beliefs (and perceptions) arise from the…
In American Jesus , Stephen Prothero traces a three-stage process that produced a uniquely American Jesus. First, Jesus was detached, through the awakenings of the nineteenth century, from the creedal and confessional Calvinism of Puritan America; then, scholars disentangled Jesus from the biblical witness, basing their faith supposedly on Jesus…
From Eugene Vinaver, on the development of Romance literature in the high middle ages: In the third quarter of the twelfth century, some ten or fifteen years after the disaster of the Second Crusade, a remarkable event occurred on the European literary scene . . . . A series of…
In the late twelfth century, the English writer Nigel Wireker produced the Speculum Stultorum , the ?Mirror of Dunces.?EIn this story, an ass, Brunellus, dissatisfied with his short tail, leaves home to visit the famous physician Galen to get a prescription for a longer tail. Galen sends him to Salerno,…
There’s a neat little chiasm in Luke 21:25-26: A. Signs in sun, moon stars B. on earth dismay among nations C. in perplexity at roaring of the sea and waves B. men fainting with fear and expectations of things coming upon the oikoumene A. powers of heavens shaken. A couple…
In this parable, Jesus tells the story of Israel using the image of the vineyard. As we saw, this was not an invention of Jesus, but goes back to Psalms and Prophets who used the vineyard as an image of Israel. In these verses Jesus says that the vineyard is…
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