Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Place names become fraught with meaning by association with people and events. The name “Wittenberg” calls to mind Luther and the Reformation for Protestants and Catholics alike. Geneva has a wider range of associations, but the Reformation Wall, with its four main statues of William Farel, John Calvin, Theodore Beza,…
“…a mystery without a solution, a horror story without savagery, a nightmare in which all the watches stop at noonday…” The Bestial Gardens of Men Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” (Luke 23:30) The following lines by Edgar Allan Poe,…
2 Samuel 11-12, which record David’s sin with Bathsheba and its aftermath, is structured chiastically: This arrangement highlights several things about the episode. It reinforces what is obvious from even a casual reading, that the transition in the story occurs with Nathan’s confrontation of David’s sin and David’s confession. Up…
Medieval bestiaries are packed with quaintly inaccurate information about animals, birds, and other created things. Foxes and snakes are devilish critters; stags, pelicans and elephants are Christlike in their various ways. Of course, the medievals picked this up from the Bible, where bestiary observations are fairly common. “Go to the…
What do Reformational Catholicism and craft beer have in common? The question seems to beg for a punchline. Better yet, it would be pretty good clickbait for an article on Katharina von Bora’s “spirited” contribution that helped spark the Protestant Reformation. Well, this is no joke and I am certainly…
Suffering Defined Suffering happens. We witness it all around us and experience it in our lives. It often comes from forces beyond our control. Suffering is inscrutable; it strikes unexpectedly, on a bright summer day or a cold winter night. We lament and are bewildered by suffering. But we are…
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Educational advice from John of Salisbury: “Considerable indulgence must be shown . . . to the young, and loquacity should be tolerated for a time so that they may wax eloquent . . . . As students mature, however, this verbosity ought to be curbed.”
Some quotations from Ivan Illich’s book on Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon : Hugh’s life coincided “with the beginning of the epoch of bookishness which is now closing,” which was “a fleeting but very important moment in the history of the alphabet when, after centuries of Christian reading, the page…
In 1921, Frank Harris argued that Shakespeare’s art reveals the man: “As it is the object of a general to win battles, so it is the life-work of the artist to show himself to us, and the completeness with which he reveals his own individuality is perhaps the best measure…
Robert Jenson attempts to expound the attributes of God as explications of the statement “God raised Jesus from the dead by the Spirit.” He objects to the traditional “bipartite classification” systems prevalent in Protestant dogmatics, citing John Gerhard’s distinction between absolute and relative attributes and commending: “This division betrays all…
In his Systematic Theology , Charles Hodge quotes the following from DF Strauss’s Dogmatik : “The ideas of the absolute and of the holy are incompatible. He who holds to the former must give up the latter, since holiness implies relation; and, on the other hand, he who holds fast…
INTRODUCTION These verses are framed by corresponding general exhortations, verses 16 and 23. Both proverbs describe the way to life: Whoever keeps commandments keeps his soul or life (v. 16), and the fear of Yahweh leads to life (v. 23). There is a “what’s more” progression between the two framing…
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