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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Barth ( CD 1.2) gives an powerful exposition of the crucial importance of anhypostasis and enhypostasis as Christological concepts. The first refers to the “impersonal” character of the human nature, and the second to the notion that the human nature exists only as the human nature of the Son. Barth…
The Dalai Lama’s comments about sex, inevitably, grabbed the headlines. But I found something else he said at a Lagos press conference the other day more arresting: “Too much attachment towards your children, towards your partner,” is “one of the obstacle or hindrance of peace of mind.” It’s ancient wisdom.…
Charles Barber ( Comfortably Numb ) writes, “In 1916, Dr. Henry Cotton of Trenton State Hospital, believing that germs from tooth decay led to insanity, removed patients’ teeth and other body parts, such as the bowels, which he thought might by the causes of their madness. In so doing, he…
Walker Percy wrote in Lost in the Cosmos (foreseeing the craze for antidepressants): “Assume that you are quite right [to be depressed]. You are depressed because you have every reason to be depressed. No member of the other two million species which inhabit the earth - and who are luckily…
Two fatherless boys - Will, a pious member of the Plymouth Brethren, and Lee, the school’s bully and bad boy - find stability and hope when they become blood brothers and make an amateur Rambo spin-off. It’s a promising premise, but Son of Rambow doesn’t carry it off. The problem…
Barth brilliantly notes the links between Zizendorf, the quest, and the cult of the sacred heart of Jesus. All, he claims, involve a devotion to the human nature of Jesus as such. Zizendorf’s preaching showed “peculiar interest in the creaturely sufferings of Christ.” And “we have here the precursor in…
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