Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What About Catholics? (continued) Usually, such people are not seeking graven images, but rather their idolatry is of a broader character. They are seeking a home on earth. Scott Hahn’s book is called Rome Sweet Home . This is the essential sin, for there is no home on earth. The…
Reading the earliest Christian apologists is like watching a movie in which the hero has the means to demolish his opponents in his grasp but never realizes it. The apologists come across as men not altogether aware of the radical character of the gospel they defend. In response to charges…
Then [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, ne`arim came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!" When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in…
Further Numerical Items of Interest Umberto Cassuto points out some other numerical factors in Genesis 5. 1 For one thing, he observes that every number in Genesis 5 is a multiple of 5, sometimes with the addition of 7. We have, in essence, made this point already. He also points…
Prostration God has designed the human body in a marvelous way, and Biblical religion is very physical. We believe in the resurrection of the body, against all pagan ideas of the immortality of the soul. We bury our bodies, not burning them. Human beings in their totality, including our bodies,…
Since Revelation is laid out in serieses of sevens, it is worth investigating to see if there is a series of seven after the seven libation-bowls of chapter 16. I believe there is, and it is the burden of this essay to expose it. The series of sevens, or heptamerous…
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Desmond points out that an origin but be both one and more than one: “even if we want to say that the origin of coming to be possesses some kind of ‘unity’ with itself, this ‘unity’ cannot be univocal. Why so? Because, such a univocal unity would be hard to…
William Desmond ( Being and the Between ) points out that humans continue to experience a “surge of mind’s self-transcendence” in the face of skeptical arguments from empiricists and idealists. Metaphysics won’t stay down, and the attempt to keep it down is a self-defeating attempt to suppress the wonder at…
Milton describes the hoards of fallen angels as scattered, fallen leaves: “thick as Autumnal leaves.” What does this mean? What’s the point of comparison? Is it merely: There are lots of fallen angels, just as there are lots of fallen leaves in your yard? The repetition of “fallen” in the…
Milton describes Satan’s spear as “equal which the tallest Pine / Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast / of some great Ammiral.” In his translation of the Iliad , Pope describes the death of Sarpedon: “as some mountain Oak, or Poplar tall / or pine (fit mast for…
Hollander quotes this evocative passage from Thoreau, who describes the sound of distant church bells: “The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the…
Hollander quotes the final sentence of “The Dead”: “His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” The chiasm of “falling faintly” and “faintly falling” makes it feel…
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