Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
There is no question about the fact that the book of Deuteronomy is full of literary allusion. But there is a serious problem, even a paradox, of understanding how that allusion works. To begin with, if we assume that Deuteronomy was written by Moses — with some editorial emendations added…
Genesis and Genetics in Blade Runner 2049 The power of science fiction, and what’s positive about it, is that you’re able to experience the worst-case scenario without actually having to live it. (Actor Ryan Gosling, who plays Officer “K”) (Warning: The following analysis contains spoilers for both Blade Runner films.)…
The battle of Gog and Magog is found in Ezekiel 38-39. My purpose in this brief essay is to propound an explanation for this passage that I have not encountered in any of my commentaries, but that makes more sense to me than any other. I offer it here in…
I. Varlam Shalamov in Kolyma Tales describes his experience of the Gulag, where he spent more than a dozen of years. In a story titled The Life of Engineer Kipreev Shalamov reflects on the theme of hope in the life of a prisoner: “Hope always shackles the convict. Hope is…
Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…
And he said to me, "What do you see?" And I answered, "I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits" (Zechariah 5:2). Immediately following his vision of the outpouring of the Spirit upon the restoration community (4:1-14), Zechariah saw a flying scroll. The…
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The account of the interactions between Elisha and the Shunammite woman (2 Kings 4) includes several episodes, but it is a unified narrative, arranged as a modified chiasm: A. Shunammite woman prepares an upper room for Elisha, 4:8-11. B. Elisha promises the woman a son, 4:12-17 (“Call this Shunammite,” v…
There are some problems in Theodore Jennings’s Outlaw Justice (note my comments here ). But there are many, many insights in Jennings’s consistently political reading of Romans. On the Spirit’s intercession (135), for instance, he writes, that “the traditional translation, [the Spirit] ‘helps us,’ is, I think, flat wrong -…
The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). We hear that, and translate it into: “We do sinful acts; God punishes us with death; the ‘wage’ sin pays is death.” As Lloyd Gaston hints in Paul and the Torah , that doesn’t fit the way Paul uses the word “sin,”…
In his contribution to Galatians and Christian Theology , Oliver O’Donovan explores the flesh-Spirit opposition in Paul’s theology. He observes that flesh is associated with the law and with the elements, and glosses: “A moral law with multiple demands enslaves us. That is the truth of polytheism, explored long ago…
The locust plague that John sees coming from the abyss sounds like an army, chariots and horses rushing into battle (Revelation 9:9). Locusts that sound like chariots have appeared already in Joel (2:5), and the voice of horses is the voice of cherubim (Ezekiel 1:24; 3:13; 10:5). The locust horde…
There’s an enormous amount of chronological information in the Bible, but it is rare for Scripture to date an event by day, month, and year together. It happens at the completion of major construction projects, when worlds are completed - the world of the tabernacle (Exodus 40:17), the temple (2…
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