Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
The Protestant-Catholic relationship has hardly been an untroubled one. And yet, the possibilities for various layers of reconciliation are better then at any time since the original schism 500 years ago. One of the symbols for the church that is used in Scripture is the church as a household (Ephesians…
Despite the layers of wiping, covering, and ransoming during the Day of Recoverings, true unity still has not been achieved. Divorce is still possible; God still might leave his people. Thus the Day of Recoverings must be repeated every year. The perpetual expression of unity between God and man in…
The events of Leviticus 16 are commonly known as “The Day of Atonement,” from the Hebrew phrase yom hakippurim, in Leviticus 23:27. However, it would be more accurate to say, “The Day of Atonements,” [i] since the word is plural. The plurality primarily relates to 16:33, which states five different…
Mary Douglas, against the common notion that primitive religious rituals were illogical and random asserts, “The analysis of ritual symbolism cannot begin until we recognize ritual as an attempt to create and maintain a particular culture … Any culture is a series of structures which comprise social forms, values, cosmology,…
Jesus holds seven stars. They are the angels of the seven churches (Revelation 1:20). For ancient readers and hearers, "seven stars" would evoke a number of associations - the seven planets, the seven stars of Ursa Major, and the seven stars that make up the Pleiades. The last makes a…
When he first arrives in Harran, at Paddan-Aram, the home of Laban his uncle, Jacob sees a well. Wells are mentioned frequently in Genesis. Twice Hagar finds a well in the wilderness (Genesis 16:14; 21:19). Philistines seize Abraham’s well (21:22-34), and Abraham’s chief servant finds a wife for Isaac at…
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Despite the evidence of the past half-decade (longer, actually), many Muslims still insist on portraying Islam as fundamentally peaceful, tolerant of non-Muslims, and claim the holy-war interpretation of jihad as an aberration of a few fanatics. Perhaps not surprisingly, these apologists are found not only in Arab and Iranian mosques…
One way to characterize the modern innovation in biblical interpretation is that it changes the Bible from a history of salvation into a history of documents. The Bible does not give access to history or the acts of God; it only gives us access to itself - the Bible as…
The new edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature , edited by novelist Margaret Drabble, is a superb, entirely updated reference work. The range is astonishing: As one would expect, it includes biographical entries for British poets and novelists from the earliest times to yesterday, but also reviews the…
Gadamer traces the development of the notion of symbol and the corresponding, and contemporaneous, devaluation of allegory. Allegory came to be identified with “non-art” as experiential-expressive notions of art and poetry developed in post-Kantian romanticism. Along the way, he notes the importance that allegory played in the formation of Western…
In the same 1962 interview, Rosenstock-Huessy has some shrewd advice about the corrupting power of grant money on youn scholars. “If I have to solicit great foundations for money for my research,” he says, “then I have to propose something which is already obsolete for me. I know no researcher…
Rosenstock-Huessay notes that the differences between European and American elementary education have much to do with the fact that “The teaching function in America, until recent years [this from a 1962 interview], had been women’s work. All teaching up to higher education, therefore, had a completely different appearance than in…
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