Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The drink offering or libation ( nesek ) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one…
When I became a Calvinist it wasn't long before I learned that John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ was regarded as the masterful treatise on what is known as "Limited Atonement"--the "L" in the TULIP mnemonic device for "the five points of Calvinism." This wasn't…
One of the advantages of paying very close attention to the details in the Bible, especially chronological and genealogical details, is that they can shed light on situations that don’t seem to make much sense apart from them. One such situation is that of Bathsheba. It appears that Bathsheba willingly…
The Feast of Ingathering in the seventh month of the Sinaitic calendar is also called the Feast of Sukkoth, of Booths, also called Feast of Tabernacles. I have usually called it by that last phrase, and it is the most common today; but there is a problem: A tabernacle is…
When Matthew’s Gospel was first read aloud to the fledgling Christian congregations, the experience must have been like seeing the words “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” appear afresh on cinema screens in 1999. Yet, unlike The Phantom Menace, the New Testament did not disappoint. Why?…
Fragmentation and integration are phenomena which artist Makoto Fujimura feels bodily, and about which he is concerned profoundly. What do these mean for him? How may we draw his insights into this ongoing consideration—itself integrative—of integration in a fragmented world? Thus far I have been acquainting you with matters already…
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Malcolm Gladwell’s lengthy essay on the Branch Davidians normalizes and humanizes a group that even to American Christians was a strange, unnerving cult. Gladwell presents a damning indictment of the FBI response to the extreme Adventist community that was destroyed near Waco in 1993. Gladwell argues persuasively that the government…
Trevaskis ( Holiness, Ethics, and Ritual in Leviticus ) proposes a chiastic outline of Leviticus 21-22: Priestly defects (Lev. 21.16-24) A. [4 defects] blind, lame, disfigured, an ‘overgrown limb’ ( ???? ) (v. 18) B. [2 defects] impaired leg, impaired hand (v. 19) C. [6 defects] hunchback, withered member, a…
Van Ruler is an advocate of “theocracy,” but he at the same time insists that toleration is “an absolute necessity in the state” ( Calvinist Trinitarianism and Theocentric Politics , 186). It is necessary because every people is religiously mixed, because intolerance invariably leads to coercion, because of the reach…
Bad question, says Justin Barrett ( Cognitive Science, Religion, and Theology , 26): “No aspect of our biological development, let along our cognitive development occurs without important contributions from both our biological endowment and our environment. Cells don’t divide and multiply without a steady stream of chemical nourishment from their…
I review Leigh Trevaskis’s Holiness, Ethics, and Ritual in Leviticus at the Trinity House site. Click here .
Donald Rayfield reviews two recent essay collections on cultural relations between England and Russia in the TLS : Anthony Cross, A People Passing Rude : British Responses to Russian Culture and Russia in Britain, 1880-1940 , edited by Rebecca Beasley and Philip Ross Bullock. The links are broader and deeper…
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