Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on…
A hundred years ago, William Warley signed a contract to buy a house in Louisville, Kentucky from Charles Buchanan, a white man. Before closing the sale, Warley, who was black, learned that the lot was subject to a city ordinance barring blacks from occupying the premises if most of the…
I concluded the first essay on this topic by saying that I would introduce three books about Shakespeare and the Bible, but I decided to introduce four instead. The three books become four are: Naseeb Shaheen, Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays (London: Associated University Presses, 1999) ; Hannibal Hamlin, The…
My children attend a classical Christian school, situated in the independent “free church” evangelical tradition. Over the past few years they have been growing in their acquaintance with the world of Homer, Plato, Virgil, and Livy. They enjoy it, and I envy it. The school is a great school. My…
The Prodigal Son parable (Luke 15) has been a favorite of liberal theologians for a couple of centuries. It seems to be a parable designed for liberal sensibilities: An indulgent, accepting Father; forgiveness extended without a cross; a surly older brother who might represent the "conservative" face of religion who…
“I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to…
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Bowersock contrasts the stance of Christians and Jews toward the Greco-Roman world: “it was precisely the Christians’ vigorous participation in the civic life and intellectual traditions of the Graeco-Roman world that grounded their martyrdoms in the life of the great cities. The Jews, by contrast, had conspicuously chosen a different…
GW Bowersock ( Martyrdom and Rome (Wiles Lectures) ) cites an article by Louis Robert to explain Perpetua’s vision at her martyrdom. She saw “a man of enormous height, whose head rises above the very top of the amphitheater itself, and whose clothes show purple garments not only falling from…
Jane Harrison begins her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books) with a quotation from Ruskin regarding the “genius of the Greeks”: “there is no dread in their hearts; pensiveness, amazement, often deepest grief and desolation, but terror never. Everlasting calm in the presence of all Fate, and…
David Gress’s excellent From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents shows that classics programs, the discipline of classics, great books programs, are founded on a highly questionable “grand narrative” of Western civilization. According to this narrative, Western history is a series of magic moments, beginning…
Dio Cassius ( Roman History , 77.7) describes how Caracalla modelsed himself after Alexander the Great: “He was so enthusiastic about Alexander that he used certain weapons and cups which he believed had once been his, and he also set up many likenesses of him both in the camps and…
Kenneth Clark: “Facts become art through love, which unifies them and lifts them to a higher plane of reality.” Almost right, that. Right on the link between artifice (poetry, courtesy, ornamentation) and love. Right too on the unifying metaphoricity of art. Right too on the link of fact and art.…
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