Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Building of the Temple Solomon began work on the Temple in the second month of his fourth year. This was the year 2993, a sabbath year. He finished in the eighth month of his eleventh year, the year 3000, also a sabbath. (1 Ki. 6:1, 38). This is said…
The Bible expresses its chronology not only in sequences of years, but also in sequences of sabbath years and jubilees. This enables us to make a cross-check of our chronology, and when we find apparent problems, to refine it. If our chronology is right, we should find some significant correlations…
Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative Sheffield, England: Almond Press, 1983. This volume is the ninth in the "Bible and Literature Series" under the general editorship of David M. Gunn. According to its author, who teaches Hebrew at the University of Maryland, the book is an effort to…
V. Propp’s classic work Morphology of the Folktale (University of Texas, 1968) argues that one of the basic structures of folk literature is "lack, lack liquidated." A king sets out to look for a wife, and the tale ends with a wedding. Often, the hero sets out on some business…
Luke’s gospel begins and ends in the temple. It opens with Gabriel’s annunciation to the priest Zacharias (whose name, appropriately, means "Yahweh remembers") of the coming of a forerunner. Zacharias is performing priestly service at the time. The book ends with the joyful worship of a new priesthood in the…
Last time we arrived at the year A.M. 3960 as the date for the inauguration of the New Creation through the death, resurrection, ascension, and session of Christ, and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We also saw that this is most likely the year of Paul’s conversion. Fourteen years…
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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…
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