Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
What About Catholics? (continued) Usually, such people are not seeking graven images, but rather their idolatry is of a broader character. They are seeking a home on earth. Scott Hahn’s book is called Rome Sweet Home . This is the essential sin, for there is no home on earth. The…
Reading the earliest Christian apologists is like watching a movie in which the hero has the means to demolish his opponents in his grasp but never realizes it. The apologists come across as men not altogether aware of the radical character of the gospel they defend. In response to charges…
Then [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, ne`arim came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, "Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!" When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in…
Further Numerical Items of Interest Umberto Cassuto points out some other numerical factors in Genesis 5. 1 For one thing, he observes that every number in Genesis 5 is a multiple of 5, sometimes with the addition of 7. We have, in essence, made this point already. He also points…
Prostration God has designed the human body in a marvelous way, and Biblical religion is very physical. We believe in the resurrection of the body, against all pagan ideas of the immortality of the soul. We bury our bodies, not burning them. Human beings in their totality, including our bodies,…
Since Revelation is laid out in serieses of sevens, it is worth investigating to see if there is a series of seven after the seven libation-bowls of chapter 16. I believe there is, and it is the burden of this essay to expose it. The series of sevens, or heptamerous…
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1) Methodologically, Mauss is particularly interested in investigating what he calls the “total social fact,” a social reality that gives expression to all sorts of institutions simultaneously. Gift-exchange events such as the potlatch are “religious, juridical, and moral” and “relate to both politics and the family”; they are “economic” events…
There is a wonderful scene in Evelyn Waugh’s Unconditional Surrender where the English Gen. Ritchie-Hooke attacks a German garrison in broad daylight, virtually alone. The Germans are left scratching their heads: “The single-handed attack on a fortified position by a British major-general, attended in one account by a small boy,…
In The Republic 588d, Plato writes, “words are a more plastic material than wax.” We can construct any manner of phantasmagorical creature in words, but think of how inept any pictorial depiction of Revelation appears, or how bizarre a portrait based on the Song of Songs would be. (Jonathan McIntosh…
A couple of weeks back, TNR published a lengthy review of Richard Neuhaus’ latest book that expanded into a warning about the danger that Neuhaus and his fellow theocons pose to American democracy. John Wilson has a lively rebuttal to the TNR piece in the current issue of Books &…
John Webster (in an essay in Volf and Welker, God’s Life in Trinity ) prefers the term “fellowship” to “communion” in describing the way creatures participate in the perfect life of God: “God communicates his absolute life. This communication does not mean that creatures participate in the life that is…
INTRODUCTION If “gift” has become a major category of recent thought, it is largely because of the influence of anthropology. Marcel Mauss’ The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies is the single most important work in this regard, and we’ll spend some time examining Mauss’ work…
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