Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
John 18, 19: Latter Prophets and the Writings John 18 and 19 record the arrest, trial, torture, and death of Jesus as laid out in detail in Isaiah 53. After the Roman soldier pierces Jesus’ side, John quotes Zechariah: “They shall look at him whom they pierced” (Zech 12:10). In…
John 12.12 – John 17: Latter Prophets In the Hebrew Scriptures, Kings is followed by the Latter Prophets. John 12:15 quotes Zechariah 9:9 as having prophesied Jesus’ triumphal entry: “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” [1] N.T. Wright…
John 6.16-70: Joshua The book of Joshua documents the nation of Israel entering the Promised Land. Consider the order of events: (1) Israel is still receiving the daily miracle of manna; (2) Israel miraculously crosses the Jordan on dry foot; (3) The day after Passover , Israel eats produce of…
Since my educational and professional training have revolved around story and narrative structure, I approach John’s Gospel from a literary and narrative perspective. In doing so, I have noticed structural story patterns and followed them where they seem to lead: the Gospel of John parallels the ordering of the books…
The Mt. Sinai Hospital was neolithic on the black hill of Hollow, New Hampshire. Winter dampened the trees and the wind bit at the sparse branches, the sidewalks and stairs were perilous with soggy leaves, and the dim yellow light cast a pallor upon the milky stone building. Ambling inside…
The Revelation can only be understood in the light of Old Testament symbols and sequences. The same is true of the epistle of Jude, which serves as a blistering hors d’oeuvre to John’s fiery feast. Possibly written by the apostle Judas Thaddaeus (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22), the epistle…
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When it’s all said and done, Rahner multiplies levels of nature and the supernatural. There is the purely conceptual “pure nature,” which has never existed in reality but must be possible if we are to think grace as grace. There are actually existing natures, the concrete reality of created beings.…
Some thoughts on Book 19 of Augustine’s City of God, mostly taken from an article by Oliver O’Donovan (the revised version of the essay published in O’Donovan and O’Donovan, Bonds of Imperfection). O’Donovan points out that the the issues in this book are broadly moral rather than specifically political. It…
In the opening pages of his Theology After Wittgenstein , Fergus Kerr, O.P., mounts a Wittgensteinian critique of Rahner’s epistemology, which, he concludes, is thoroughly indebted to Cartestian philosophy. Due to the influence of Cartesian categories, Kerr sees Rahner’s theology determined by “an extremely mentalist-individualist epistemology” that contributes to a…
One of Dabney’s answers to the charge that imputation is unjust is tat “God forbids imputation of capital guilt by human magistrates,” but “He customarily claims the exercise of it in His own government.” The difference he explains by saying “Human magistrates are themselves under law, in common with those…
Several students have observed the parallels between Peter’s denial in John 18 and the denial of Jesus by the Jews in chapter 19. Peter denies three times, in a pattern of 1 + 2; so do the Jews. Between then, contrasting to these denials, is Pilate’s threefold confession of Jesus’…
Dabney thinks that Calvinists have offered “unsatisfactory” answers to objections to its doctrine of definite atonement. Two sorts of objections in particular: “From the universal offer of atonement through Christ, and from Scripture.” He answers these objections, and then goes on into a detailed discussion of the “relation of limited…
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