Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what…
An Overview Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail. (The original form of…
29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If…
We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in…
Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the…
24. Four things are small on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise; 25. The ants are not a strong folk, But they prepare their food in the summer; 26. The coneys are not a mighty folk, Yet they make their houses in the rocks; 27. The locusts have no…
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Mathew Kuefler ( The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society) ) notes that the traditional Roman patria potestas , and the male sexual privileges associated with it, were already waning in the early empire. But Constantine gave…
Radner has these final comments on the hermeneutics of the “holiness code”: “The difference between the sexual laws of Lev. 18 and the laws of clean and unclean flesh in Lev. 11 cannot simply lie in their respective relation to teh category of ceremonial character. The difference lies in the…
Radner finds part of the fulfillment of the figures of Leviticus 18 in the genealoty of Jesus. On the one hand, Jesus’ own genealogy includes sexually illicit acts (Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba) and the various sins (not only sexual, but idolatry and oppression) represented in the genealogy eventually lead to Israel’s…
In dealing with the sexual legislation of Leviticus 18, Ephraim Radner ( Leviticus (Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible) ) employs a figural/prophetic framework rather than a more traditional ceremonial/moral one. The results are intriguing. The prohibition of adultery, for instance, is “fulfilled by means of confession, self-recognition, forgiveness, and…
Drake notes the unique “democratic” flavor of the churcfh in the fourth century: “Christianity restored to common people an outlet for popular participation which they were denied in imperial politics. Eusebius [of Caesarea’s] awkward letter to his confregation from Nicaea, Constantine’s frequent letters to the Christians of Nicomedia, Alexandria, or…
Xenophon’s Cyrus provides a good illustration of Elias’s theory: “He trained his associates also not to spit or to wipe the nose in public, and not to turn round to look at anything, as being men who wondered at nothing. All this he thought contributed, in some measure, to their…
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