Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In the 48th year, the third month, and the fourteenth night, while I slept in my bed, I was taken in vision to Xanadu and set upon a high hill. Looking to the west, I saw a large building, surrounded with gardens and fountains, walks and gravestones, and a bell…
‘Tis the season to be informed–sometimes in gentleness, often with vigor–by a variety of Christians (and others) 1 claiming that it is wrong to celebrate Christmas. I have no desire to force anyone to celebrate Christmas against their will. Indeed, it would be insulting to the high holiday to pretend…
Part 2: The Enoch Factor Back in Open Book 21 we discussed "The Enoch Factor." Because that was several years ago (May 1994) and many people have begun reading this letter since that time, we shall return to the subject here and expand what we wrote at that time. After…
Day 6. The sixth day provides the creation of land animals and of humanity. As we saw above, the second day spills over to the first half of the third day, for only at that point did God say that it was good. Similarly, it seems that the fifth day…
During the past two decades, the "quest of the historical Jesus" has entered a new phase. The first incarnation of the quest was rudely shaken by the publication of Albert Schweitzer’s classic Quest of the Historical Jesus , easily the most devastating and funniest work of New Testament scholarship ever…
At the 1997 Biblical Horizons Summer Conference, the Rev. Jeffrey Meyers presented a series of remarkable lectures on the gospel of Mark. Among his many insightful comments, he suggested that the second gospel continues where the first gospel ends; Matthew ends with Jesus saying "Go" (Matthew 28:19), and Mark’s shows…
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Exodus 21:26-27 requires a slave-owner to release a slave if he destroys his or her eye or tooth. Shalom Paul ( Studies in the Book of the Covenant , 78) claims that this is unprecedented in ancient law codes. He admits that "a slave is not considered the peer of…
The Hebrew word for "east" is mizrach . The Hebrew word for "altar" is mizbeach . A pun? Perhaps. The bronze altars in the tabernacle and temple were in the court to the east of the front doorway (the eastern) doorway of the sanctuary. The mizbeach was on the mizrach…
In Ezekiel 47, the prophet is shown a vision of a rebuilt temple. A river flows from the throne of Yahweh, under the threshold on the east of the house, and out to the land. As it flows, is makes the land fruitful, and when it reaches the Dead Sea…
For several decades, James Wood has bestridden the world of literary criticism like a Colossus. But Thomas Meaney suggests that there is something amiss in Wood-World. Meaney argues that "What distinguished Wood from most of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors was his focus on matters of aesthetic liberty over social…
A recurring theme of medieval treatments of beauty, writes Umberto Eco (Art and Beauty in the Midlde Ages), is "the beauty of being in general. It was a period in whose history darkness and contradiction may be found, but its philosophers and theologians had an image of the universe that…
Proverbs 5:15-23 follows the warnings of 5:1-14 concerning the seductive adulterous woman. The adulterous woman tempts by promising pleasure and, even more importantly, through flattery (vv. 2-3). The adulterous woman is attractive because she makes a young man feel oh so good about himself. Solomon goes on, however, to point…
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