Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
When might the Gospel according to Matthew have been written? Of course, any answer can only be speculation, but that does not mean we are reduced to groundless opinion. In this series of articles I point the way to an approach different from the general consensus among scholars today which…
In my first essay on “synopticity” I offered a rather rough definition of the phenomenon and important, though not exhaustive examples. In this essay, I want to introduce broader aspects of the phenomenon of “synopticity.” The first example that I have in mind is conventional stories, stories of different historical…
Since the judgment of Babel was followed by the initiation of the circumcision, the impending end of the circumcision in AD70 explains the significance of the first century miracle of foreign tongues. Except for a few Aramaic “teasers” in the book of Daniel, the Word of God was monolingual and…
To the best of my knowledge “synopticity” is not a word used in theology or Biblical studies, but it seems an appropriate word to describe the kind of phenomena associated with the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These three Gospels tell essentially the same story with significant — sometimes…
Humor is a funny thing. It is altogether familiar yet also mysterious. What makes us laugh? Why do we find things funny? There are academic fields of study dedicated to discovering what makes things humorous. These academicians even have a journal entitled International Journal of Humor Research . No joke.…
Out of all the characters in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales , the Pardoner has been called the “one lost soul.” The pious Parson, who closes out the collection of tales with a sermon on the seven deadly sins and how a sinner can absolve himself of them, connects the…
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In an article from the 1950s, Paul Kristeller traced the development of the system of the fine arts that everyone since at least Kant has taken for granted. He notes that this system, which considers some specific endeavours as “fine arts” separated from mere “crafts” or “artisanship,” was given a…
De Certeau suggests that Cusa’s Germanized Latin provides a linguistic illustration of his theory of the “coincidence of opposites”: “Germanisms haunt his Latin. They are the ghosts of a particular place (Rhineland, or Germany) in a different place, Latin, a language supposed to be ‘universal’ but in fact limited to…
Steven A. Walton provides an illuminating summary of the scholastic incorporation of mechanical arts into philosophy and theology. John the Scot first used the term artes mechanicae in the ninth century, and monasteries preserved and improved upon ancient technologies, but “they did not warrant inclusion in the philosophical canon.” Most…
In his treatise De Venatione Sapientiae , Nicholas of Cusa explained the Platonic doctrine of ideas as follows: “Ideas are not separated from individuals in such a way as to be extrinsic exemplars. For the individual’s nature is united to the Idea itself, from which it has all these [endowments]…
A friend, Jim Rogers, sends along this quotation from the late Richard Neuhaus: “Scholars generally agree that in the first century there were approximately six million Jews in the Roman Empire . . . That was about one tenth of the entire population. About one million were in Palestine, including…
Wow. That’s my initial reaction to a quick perusal of the opening chapters of Douglas Campbell’s The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul , just out from Eerdmans. Campbell attacks what he calls the “foundationalism” and “contractualism” that undergird “Justification theory” as it has been understood…
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