Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Summary : The Bible is a multi-faceted text. As a result, it can fruitfully be analyzed in many ways. Pace, context, flow, imagery: all of these aspects of the Biblical text are significant and instructive. Here, by way of illustration, I analyze Gen. 38 in a range of different ways,…
Summary: The Bible is a multi-faceted text. As a result, it can fruitfully be analysed in many ways. Pace, context, flow, imagery: all of these aspects of the Biblical text are significant and instructive. Here, by way of illustration, I analyse Gen. 38 in a range of different ways, and…
The closing chapters of the Bible bring to fulfillment the mission inaugurated in the opening chapters of the Bible: the dwelling place of God expands to fill the entire new creation. The story of Scripture concludes having achieved God’s original intent for His people in the Garden of Eden, and…
Oddly, the nature of pre -modern economies plays a central role in today’s policy debate over economic globalization and neo-liberalism. Analysts take ancient non-market economies as the standard against which to measure the economic and social effects of the market system. Scholars compare the distribution of economic goods and services…
In part one of this essay, I mentioned that the story of Zacchaeus includes not only many details that point to other passages in Luke, but also details that point to the Old Testament, though we might not initially think of them. The first detail I have in mind is…
The story of Zacchaeus includes numerous interesting details that link this story with others in the Gospel of Luke. There are also details that tie the story of Zacchaeus to the Old Testament in ways that we might not initially take note of. In the Gospel of Luke, the story…
Showing page 74 of 309
Showing page 7 of 43
In an essay on Thomas Nagel’s recent Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False , Edward Feser (at firstthings.com) describes what he calls the “eliminative materialism” that is strongly implied in post-Cartesian philosophy. Feser writes, “On the new view of nature inaugurated by…
“In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah . . . Eval-merodach king of Babylon . . . released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison” (2 Kings 25:27). Jehoiachin was elevated above other kings, given royal robes, and allowed to sit at the table of the…
As John H. McKenna sees it ( Become What You Receive: A Systematic Study of the Eucharist (Hillenbrand Books) , 207 ), neither Protestants nor Catholics started from the right spot in debating Eucharistic sacrifice. The “fatal flaw” in both was the equation of sacrifice with immolation. Catholic equated the…
Adam Smith distinguishes between what is praised and what is praiseworthy, between being loved and being lovely. What we desire is “that thing which is the natural and proper object of love”; what we really want is “not only praise but praiseworthiness,” praise for those things that are the proper…
According to Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments , sympathy is necessary to maintain concord in the midst of passionate disagreement. So long as disagreements and divergence of sentiment focus on minor topics, they are tolerable: “I can much more easily overlook the want of this correspondence of sentiments…
Who said this? “The distinguishing feature of the community and the city is that every individual should maintain free and undisturbed control of his possessions.” And: “those charged with the defence of the state will dissociate themselves from the kind of lavish distribution which robs Peter to pay Paul. Their…
Showing page 859 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
