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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Historians do not make the periods of history, argues Rosenstock-Huessy ( Out of Revolution , 689ff). The seams of history are made by people who experience upheaval, and commemorate those experiences in monuments, memory, and calendar. Yet the historian has his place, one marked out first by Thucydides: “He corrects…
Rosenstock-Huessy offers an intriguing analysis of the triumph of the “French” myth of the Renaissance ( Out of Revolution , 699-705). For starters, he gives a bleak summary of Europe between 1450 and 1517, “one of the ugliest and darkest hours of the past”: “The growth of the cities ceased…
Tim Judah continues his reporting on Ukraine : “What we saw in the Orange Revolution, and what we are seeing now, is a fight for the very soul of Ukraine, a country of some 45.5 million people that stretches between the eastern marches of the European Union to the western…
There are two temple sermons in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah himself preaches at the gate of the temple (Jeremiah 7), warning that the house of Yahweh has become a “den of thieves” (v. 11) and that the Lord will do to His house “as He did to Shiloh” (v.…
Psalm 107 repeats the same phrase four times: “then they cried out to Yahweh in their trouble, He saved them from their distress” (vv. 6, 13, 19, 28). There are four forms of distress: Some wander in a wilderness, hungry and thirsty, unable to find their way to a city…
Inequality is a big theme these days. Alister Heath writes to remind us that not all inequality is equal . Some inequality arises inevitably because of disparities of talent, opportunity, risk, etc. Heath focuses on the inequality that arises when people cozy up to power in order to use that…
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