Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Suppose that the theistic evolutionists are right, and that the Big Bang Hypothesis is correct. In that case, God originally created a Primeval Atom, which then exploded and congealed to form the present universe. Now, if you had arrived on the scene one quintillionth of a second after God created…
According to Galatians 3, Abraham heard the gospel when the Lord promised that "all the nations shall be blessed in you." Paul quotes here from Genesis 12:3, but the context puts an odd slant on the Old Testament text. Galatians 3 starts with a series of rhetorical questions about the…
Ephesians 2.15: ton vomon twv enotwn en dogmasin katargesas, ina tous duo ktise en autw eis ena kainon anthrwpon, poiwn eirenen having annulled the law of the commandments in decrees, in order that He might create in Him[self] the two into one new man, making peace. The above translation is…
In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…
James Jordan has pointed out in Through New Eyes and elsewhere that the Mosaic system of worship comes to an end with the dismemberment of the tabernacle in 1 Samuel 4-6. Because of the sins of Eli and his sons, that priestly family is cut off and the ark is…
In a significant essay in the 19 April 1999 issue of The Weekly Standard, entitled "Wars of Hatred and the Hatred of War," Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., points out a significant shift that seems to be taking place in the modern world. He begins by asserting his thesis, that a…
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I have described Descartes’s cogito as modernity’s founding ingratitude, the thought experiment that justified (doubtless against Descartes’s ultimate intentions) countless political, intellectual, and cultural erasures of the past. So also biblical criticism, though the ingratitude takes a specific form here. Insofar as biblical criticism arises from “inner light” sectarians (and…
Each is responsible for all, Dostoevsky says. He didn’t mean that no one was responsible. He meant that responsibility spreads far. In his intriguing Rosenstock-Huessy-inspired Power, Love, and Evil , Wayne Cristaudo illustrates Dostoevsky’s point with a review of the family history of Gary Gilmore. Extreme violence went back several…
John Nolland points out in his commentary on Matthew that the combination “evil and adulterous” is found in the LXX of Hosea 3:1, applied to Gomer. He suggests that by using this phrase, Jesus is echoing Hosea, and implicitly comparing the Jews to the generation of the exile. This makes…
I don’t want to over-dramatize, but I had a taste of the Bush police state this weekend. I crossed the line, and felt the force of the federal government bearing down on me. I tasted totalitarianism. I was dragged into The Castle, playing the role of K. The TSA tried…
Jesus rebukes the scribes and Pharisees for seeking signs, but He promises to give a sign, the sign of Jonah. Two observations: First: Signs are given; signs are gifts. Second, the first time we hear of “giving signs” in the Bible is Deuteronomy 13, which describes Israel’s proper response to…
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees as an “evil and adulterous generation” for demanding a sign. Israel is being conceived, clearly, as a faithless bride; and she is a faithless bride because, in the face of countless signs of Yahweh’s favor to Israel in Jesus, she is still searching for…
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