Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
To begin with the source of this narrative: Since no human being was present to observe these events, we must assume that this narrative was revealed directly by God to a human author. There are three ways this might have happened. First, we might read, "God said to Abraham (or…
The Empire Strikes Back is a movie most of us have seen more than once. It is generally regarded as the best of the three Star Wars films, which is probably due to the fact that unlike the other two, The Empire Strikes Back made use of the services of…
Now that we have examined three unacceptable approaches to the events recorded in Genesis 1, it is only fair for me to set out what does seem to be recorded there. To begin with the source of this narrative: Since no human being was present to observe these events, we…
Two books on the "Bible Code" have appeared this year. The first, a current bestseller, is Michael Drosnin’s The Bible Code (Drosnin, 1997). The other is Cracking the Bible Code (William Morrow, 1997), by Jeffrey Satinover, known to Christians for his outstanding 1996 book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth…
Part 1: Introduction The collapse of the Western tradition in the United States, seen in the hostility to Christianity in government and education, and the elimination of "traditional" or "canon" learning from our institutions of middle and higher learning, provides a crisis and an opportunity for serious believers at the…
A Brief Defense of John Murray’s “the Free Offer of the Gospel,” & A Question About the Extent of the Atonement John Murray (1898-1975) is probably the last of the great American theologians; he belonged in the same set as that which contains such eminent Presbyterians as Charles Hodge and…
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INTRODUCTION After the Olivet Discourse, Jesus “finished all these words” (26:1; cf. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1).  His public ministry of teaching Israel is over.  Like Moses (Deuteronomy 32:45), nothing remains for Him but to die. THE TEXT “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings,  that…
Protestants agreed with Catholics that the Song elaborates a nuptial analogy to the church’s relation to Christ, but Scheper finds a significant difference between Protestants and Catholics when they explain why that analogy is apt in the first place.  Protestants, consistent with the emphasis on legal categories for justification and…
The Puritans were not prudes, but the caricature has some basis in fact. Again the Song of Songs provides a neat barometer.  Scheper juxtaposes a medieval monk’s interpretation of the “breasts” of the Song with that of two Protestant interpreters.  The results are fascinating: “the Cistercian monk Gilbert of Hoilandia does…
the Protestant commentaries almost uniformly adopt a primarily ecclesial allegory, with the tropological dimension as a valid application. But so, in fact, is the medieval tradition built on the foundation of the ecclesial interpretation, and even those commentaries devoted most strikingly to the Christsoul allegory, such as Bernard’s, recognize that…
The modern oblivion of the book has tended to blind us to the really crucial position it holds in exegetic history, not only for the question of allegory but for the central matter of the relation of divine to profane love, and in fact, as Ruth Wallerstein has said, the…
there is a certain discrepancy between the purity of these theoretical statements, polemical in context, and the actual exegetic practice of the Reformers. Moreover, the rejection of allegory and the insistence on one undivided sense hinged for the early Reformers on maintaining a radical distinction between typology and allegory. But…
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