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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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John

Engaging John, Engaging One Another

The Paradosis Center at John Brown University in Siloam Spring, Arkansas, put on its first conference last week, it was a remarkable event. It was an ecumenical conference including Orthodox (John Behr, Edith Humphrey, others), Catholic (Rusty Reno, Michael Root, others), and Evangelical (Timothy George, David Lyle Jeffrey). Unusually for…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 30, 2014
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Leviticus

Zoemics

Naphtali Meshel observes in his new The "Grammar" of Sacrifice that scholars have been talking for decades about the "grammatical" character of ritual and sacrifice in general, but have never actually analyzed a specific ritual or sacrificial system grammatically. Some even talk about a "universal grammar" of sacrifice "even though…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 29, 2014
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Isaiah

God in the Dock

Some Christians are rather breezy about the problem of evil. We shouldn't be. Do I need to remind you of the grisly beheadings that have taken place over the past few weeks? Do I need to remind you of the blood of innocents that’s been spilled in our own country?…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 24, 2014
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Baptism

Recreated in Four Dimensions

Have you ever been to a wedding where the heavens opened and a voice declared the couple “husband and wife”? Few of us have. Beautiful as they are, most marriages are quite mundane. Yet when Jesus talks about marriage, He describes it as something that God does: “What God has…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 22, 2014
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Matthew

The Least Of These

Jesus is the last and greatest of the Prophets. He is the Prophet that Moses predicted (Deuteronomy 18). That means He gives the final word, brings the blueprints for the final temple, speaks the final world into existence, and has complete and permanent access to the divine court, where He…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 2014
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Galatians

Paul and the Troublers of Galatia

Paul stands against those who are “troubling” or “disturbing” the Galatians churches ( tarasso ; 1:7; also in 5:10). The reference seems to be two great troublers from the Old Testament. First, Achan is described as a “troubler” for the problems he causes in the aftermath of the battle at…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 15, 2014

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Philosophy

Descartes’ Hermeticism

Some paragraphs from an illuminating paper by Michael Allen Gillespie concerning Descartes’ links with Rosicrucians: “The Rosicrucians were essentially a Hermetic society that sought to understand the hidden order of nature in order to gain power over and through it. Agrippa, for example, wrote in 1655 that for ‘a magician…

March 2, 2006

Two Cultures

Martin Peretz notes the differences among the Harvard faculties in their responses to Larry Summers’ attempts to reform the university: When Harvard hired Summers to “bring the university into modern times,” it was electrifying: “You could feel the walls of the faculty club tremble. Well, the walls of the club…

March 2, 2006

Curry

In an intriguing article on multiculturalism, Amartya Sen briefly mentions the international formation of Indian cuisine: “India had no chili until the Portuguese brought it to India from America, but it is effectively used in a wide range of Indian food today and seems to be a dominant element in…

March 2, 2006
History

Postmodern Society

Krishan Kumar, From Post-Industrial to Post-Modern Society. Second Edition. London: Blackwell, 2005. 289 pp. Much has been written about postmodernity, but this book by Krishan Kumar, William R. Kennan, Jr., Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, is in a league of its own. First published in 1995, From…

March 2, 2006
Philosophy

Theory

Postmodern theory, Mike Featherstone says, “argues for the abandonment of longstanding ambitions within modernity to develop foundations for knowledge: in effect the abandonment of the quest for unity, generality and synthesis.” Postmodern theory claims to find greater complexity than other modes of theorizing can encompass, and he complains that “master…

March 1, 2006
Literature

Final Word on Hamlet

That is to say, my final word, for a while. INTRODUCTION Throughout the term, we have looked at a variety of different angles on Hamlet. We have seen Hamlet through the eyes of romantics like Coleridge and Goethe; Freudians like Ernst Jones; modernists like TS Eliot and James Joyce. One…

February 28, 2006

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