Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Thus says the Lord: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15). The Night of the Hunter belongs on every Christian’s Christmas list. My family has even…
One important part of Jesus's birth narrative is the presence of angels. The angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, announcing that she would bear a son. And then, on the night Jesus was born, a whole host of angels appeared to the shepherds. Angels are mysterious creatures to us.…
I was settled nicely into my chair and listening to the conversation in an undergrad religion seminar, my last required course to graduate. Though a few Christians sat scattered around the room, the course itself was dedicated to poking holes in traditional understandings of the Bible: our readings deconstructed notions…
God’s symbols belong to Him and to His people. They are constantly at work in the world, including the world of film, music, painting, architecture, and other artforms. You cannot escape God’s symbols or the meaning He has woven into the created order. Artists use and borrow God’s symbols, whether…
For centuries, Christians identified Israel in the Old Testament as a single, literal ethnic group, often called “the Jews.” Even supersessionists – those who believed the Church superseded Israel – assumed the clear-cut, technical definition of “Israel” in the Bible is the ethnic group. However, a deeper dive into Genesis,…
Misreading Intent In the opening verses of Matthew 11, the reader is confronted immediately by John the baptizer who has been imprisoned since 4:12. John poses a question to Jesus, inquiring from prison as to whether or not he is Israel’s awaited Messiah or if they should anticipate another: “Are…
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What is Paul trying to prove in Romans 1:18-3:20? Here are a few, non-exhaustive, suggestions: 1) He is trying to close “every mouth” and demonstrate that “all the world” is “accountable to God,” and guilty before Him. It is sometimes said in recent Pauline scholarship that this is not a…
This morning, NPR had a report on “Celebrants USA,” an organization of “Professional celebrants” that designs and officiates at ceremonies of all kinds. The report was about ceremonies of “downsizing,” held when someone loses his or her job because of cuts in the size of a company’s workforce. Celebrants USA’s…
A potpourri of interesting reviews in Books & Culture : 1) Gerald McDermott reviews several recent evangelical books on Christianity’s relation to non-Christian religions. He is critical of attempts (Paul Heim, e.g.) to root a pluralist or inclusivist view of other religions in the doctrine of the Trinity, and also…
At a number of points in his book, Dollimore explores the “eroticization” of death, the tendency of Western writers (and visual artists) not only to describe death as a desirable erasure of desire (or desirable for some other reason) but also to describe death in quasi-erotic terms. This is seen…
Dollimore has some thoughtful things to say about postmodernism, especially in relation to Lacan: “what I find in Lacan is an overtheorized expression of something more significantly and relevantly expressed elsewhere (in Freud and before).” (He cites specifically Schopenhauer and Montaigne.) “In this respect I believe he is symptomatic of…
A somewhat more expanded treatment of the chiasm of Luke 3-7. Jesus’ baptism and temptation still don’t fit well, but the rest hangs together pretty nicely. Some comments are appended below. A. John the Baptist’s ministry, 3:1-20 B. Jesus’ baptism, genealogy, temptation, 3:21-4:13 C. Jesus at Nazareth, 4:14-30 Isaiah 61…
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