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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Paul Helm argues in a 1975 articles that “merely Cambridge events” are not actually events. He is picking up on Peter Geach’s claim that only intrinsic changes, and not relational changes, are real changes. More specifically, he is responding to Jaegwon Kim’s argument that Cambridge events (Xanthippe becoming a widow…
JME McTaggart argued in the 1920s that everything changes when anything changes: “If anything changes, then all other things change with it. For its change must change some of their relations to it, and so their relational qualities.” David Weberman finds this “perfectly consistent,” but concludes that “it offends our…
PG Lake writes that Whitgift “used a Calvinist view of the doctrine of predestination to shift much of Cartwright’s rhetoric about the glory and purity of the church from the visible to the invisible church. By doing so, he was able to clear the way for that erastian dominance of…
Luke 7:48: Jesus said to her, Your sins have been forgiven. As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, there is a liturgical structure to this episode in Luke 7. Jesus is in a house at a table. The woman comes in and offers her oil to Jesus and mourns her sins.…
Isaiah 52:13-15: Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations,…
I’m drawing on Jim Jordan’s Biblical Horizons lectures from this summer. “Be filled with the Spirit,” Paul writes, “speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” The Spirit is the music of the Trinity, the breath that gives…
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