Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what…
An Overview Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail. (The original form of…
29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If…
We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in…
Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the…
24. Four things are small on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise; 25. The ants are not a strong folk, But they prepare their food in the summer; 26. The coneys are not a mighty folk, Yet they make their houses in the rocks; 27. The locusts have no…
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Matthew 6:17-18: But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you may not be seen fasting by men, but by your heavenly Father, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Fasting was a duty of Jewish piety, and…
Matthew 3:17: At Jesus’ baptism, a voice from heaven said, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. Baptism is an adoption rite. By baptism, Jacob enters the family of God. He is going to gain dozens of older brothers and sisters, lots of parents, a heavenly Father,…
Some sins are obvious. Murder is both a sinful act and arises from a sinful motive. After a murder, there’s a dead body and a murderer with a smoking gun. Murder is obviously and thoroughly evil. And the same is true of adultery, theft, false witness, and a host of…
At the beginning of Book 11 of Apuleius’s Golden Ass , Lucius returns to his human shape by prayer. As David Garland points out, the prayer is a good illustration of the kind of pagan prayers Jesus condemns in the sermon on the mount. In William Adlington’s 1556 translation, it…
Alex the African Grey died on September 6 at the age of 31. According to the obit in the Economist , Irene Pepperberg, a theoretical chemist who worked with Alex, had worked with Alex to the point that he “had the intelligence of a five-year-old child and had not yet…
In his splendid performance history of Shakespeare, David Bevington frequently comments on the “scenic literalism” of film and television. Commenting on a TV production of As You Like It , he laments that the production “tells us where we are in the story by putting entire landscapes or interiors in…
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