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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Anatolios makes the striking observation that Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover” is even more transcendent than Plato’s form of the good. For Plato, being is self-communicative, and his most exalted realities (the form of the good, the forms) are participatable. Not Aristotle’s UM, which just thinks thinking in total self-absorption, while everything…
Henry Chadwick notes that the “alienation of Egypt and much of Syria from the Chalcedonian government was a serious political matter, and gravely weakened those key provinces before the Moslem invasions.”
Were the ecumenical councils infallible? Many in the early church clearly didn’t consider them so. The most vigorous, and vicious, arguments over Arius took place between Nicea and First Constantinople, and the Monophysite controversy continued for a century and more after Chalcedon had condemned Eutyches (as well as Nestorius). Nestorianism…
Henry Chadwick notes that Julian the Apostate tried to gain Jewish support by proposing to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem: “although Julian had little but contempt for Judaism, he was well aware that a proposal to restore sacrificies in a rebuilt temple at Jerusalem would touch the Christians at a…
Much of the theology instruction in the high middle ages took the form of commentary on established texts, most importantly the Four Books of the Sentences by Peter the Lombard. Lombard’s triumph, though, was contested. As Deeana Klepper points out in her book on Nicolas of Lyra, one of the…
Jean Blum characterized Hamann’s thought as follows: “Hamann’s thought is what those who do not normally think would think if they did think.” That gets it pretty well, as does Berlin’s comment that Hamann “was a major force in transforming the ideas which hitherto had lived in small, self-isolated religious…
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