Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
1 Chronicles 9:1 seems to bring the genealogies of 1 Chronicles to an end. The Chronicler has recorded the genealogy of the human race from Adam, focusing on the descendants of Abraham through Jacob. Summing it all up, he says, “So all Israel was enrolled by genealogies; and behold, they…
The “personalist” understanding of the Trinity, articulated most influentially in the work of John Zizioulas, has fallen on hard times. Recent scholars have attacked Zizioulas’s idea that Cappadocian Trinitarianism represented an ontological revolution, hammering on the distinction between divine and human personhood. Michel Barnes’s conclusion is the most drastic of…
Biblical Theology is often defined as the historical unfolding of God’s revelation, or of God’s revelation and of the history of his covenantal redemption and transformation of humanity and the world. In practice, Biblical Theology is usually broader than this, and also includes the study of literary structure and of…
We are made to be happy. Created to enter into the eternal joy of God, our whole being inclines to that end, but the fallen world has put forth barriers and by our own sin we bar ourselves from that endless delight, and death blinds us to that reality. Yet…
At the end of Revelation, John sees the heavenly city descending to earth. The city shines with the brilliance of God's glory, which lightens the nations, so that kings bring their glory to the city. This is not a vision of the final new heaven and new earth. It's a…
“No one has ever seen God,” writes John (John 1:18). If this is the case, then how can we speak about God? Some people say we actually cannot. Or at least we cannot speak about God positively, i.e. who He is. We can only say who or what God is…
Showing page 130 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
It has been customary since the middle ages to define sacrifice in terms of death. To sacrifice is to give something over to destruction. Roy Gane points out in his Cult and Character that this does not conform to the biblical usage. The bread of the presence is described as…
In a 1997 review in First Things, Andrew McKenna suggests that Derrida’s most important contribution might ultimately be to deconstruct philosophy so thoroughly that one is left only with theology: “the Sermon on the Mount performs a critique of difference to which any deconstructor can subscribe. Subject to serious misuses,…
Jordan’s reflections on “leprosy” help to explain why Miriam, and not Aaron, becomes leprous in Numbers 12. Jordan notes that the term for “plague” used in Leviticus 13 is actually “touch,” and suggests that the leper is “touched” by Yahweh, sometimes in response to sacrilege, a violation of God’s holiness.…
Jordan’s reflections on “leprosy” help to explain why Miriam, and not Aaron, becomes leprous in Numbers 12. Jordan notes that the term for “plague” used in Leviticus 13 is actually “touch,” and suggests that the leper is “touched” by Yahweh, sometimes in response to sacrilege, a violation of God’s holiness.…
In his stimulating essay on Leviticus 13 (available from Biblical Horizons), Jim Jordan reflects on the fact that a white hair in the flesh makes a man unclean. White hair is associated with glory, and so the uncleanness results from the contradiction between glorification and flesh. The unclean “leper” is…
Robyn Horner helpfully expounds on Derrida’s deconstruction of the gift by considering whether the text can be construed as a gift. In a section of Given Time , Derrida discusses a text by Baudelaire, noting that it is a given “not only because we are first of all in a…
Showing page 1606 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
