Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Theophanic revelation is historically progressive, or eschatological, in character. First of all, in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit appeared inside the creation, sent by the Father. After the creation of man, the Spirit worked and works with humanity to bring us to maturity, from Daughter to Bride to fruitful Mother. He…
On the eighth day of the rite of "filling the hand," Aaron began his service at the altar. His first offering was a "calf" (Heb. `egel ), which served as a purification offering for himself and (apparently) his household (Leviticus 9:2, 8). This is striking for a couple of reasons.…
One of the distinctive items of the high priest’s clothing was the "golden plate" inscribed with the words "Holy to Yahweh" (Exodus 28:36-38). The word translated as "plate" is tsits , which literally means "flower." The verbal and noun forms are both used in Numbers 17:8, which describes Aaron’s rod…
The square, rectangle, and cross shapes appear all over the sanctuaries God reveals in the Bible: Tabernacle, Solomon’s Temple, Ezekiel’s Temple, New Jerusalem. One thing that can be said right away about these designs, and the occasional perfect circle (the lavers), is that they do not occur in nature. They…
"For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). Some reflections on Jonah’s Big Fish have led to the following essay. Let me…
Citing Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20, James Jordan has written that "the name of God in use among the nations was God Most High’" (Hebrew, `el `elyon ; in Through New Eyes , p. 176). In addition to Melchizedek, one could cite the example of Balaam, who invokes the Lord both…
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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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