Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
I mentioned last month ( BH 82) in my essay "Like a Dove" that Genesis 8 is a recapitulation of Genesis 1. Let me explicate that assertion here. Of course, the world after the Flood is a new creation, so we may expect a recapitulation of the first creation. It…
The book of Esther is one of the most neglected of the books of the Bible. To be sure, sermons are preached on it, and commentaries have occasionally been written on it, but almost without exception Esther has been interpreted in isolation from the rest of Biblical history, chronology, and…
Dear Mr. ______, . . . Here is how I look at the geocentricity question. Since I don’t recall what I wrote you before, I may be repeating some things. 1. The Bible does not teach it. Biblical passages used to support the idea are being misinterpreted. My original paper…
Answer 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is often taken as a magnificent answer to the question, "What is God?" It reads: "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." Presbyterians are fond of praising this statement, preaching on it,…
The gospels tell us that at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him "in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22 & parallels). Biblically sensitive commentators have associated this event with three Old Testament parallels: (1) the hovering of the Spirit over the creation in Genesis 1:2; (2) the…
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. (John 8:6) The story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) has been part of the canonical Christian Bible from its earliest…
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The Torah never mentions breasts as an object of erotic fascination; they are solely nourishment for infants. In the wisdom literature, things are different. Solomon encourages young men to delight in the breasts of their wives - not of another, a strange woman (Proverbs 5) -, and in the Song…
Solomon describes the beauty of his beloved in a neat and symmetrical poem in Song of Songs 7:1-6. Framed by “how beautiful you are” (vv. 1, 6), the poem describes ten features of her body. He starts with her feet and his gaze makes its way up. The ten features…
The old adage applies in spades to the covers of Pride and Prejudice sampled in the NYTBR . Don’t judge the book by any of these covers, especially the Lady Godiva, the Twilight knock-off, and the “smokin’ bad boy Darcy” ones.
Technology promises to accomplish the same things that have always been done more efficiently. Borgmann is skeptical ( Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry ) (45-46), and he summarizes George Sturt’s The Wheelwright’s Shop (Craftsman) to explain the notion of the “concealment” of technology, the fact…
In his Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry , Albert Borgmann makes a crucial distinction between a technical device and its machinery. This is “a specific instance of the means-ends distinction” (43), the machinery being the means by which the device becomes useful to its user.…
Claude Rawson’s review of Alastair Fowler’s Literary Names: Personal Names in English Literature focuses on names used to mock and deride. Swift, for instance, “attached enormous importance to naming and not being named (a characteristic Fowler incidentally identifies with Milton’s fallen angels). Swift scrupulously marked with an ‘X; every reference…
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