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Writing

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

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Leviticus

Yahweh's War Against Death

Stories, frankly all human stories are practically always about one thing aren’t they? Death. The inevitability of death. . . . “There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must…

by Brian MarrApril 14, 2014
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Matthew

Inescapable Blood

Matthew is organized around 5 discourses, which trace out the history of Jesus as a recapitulation of the history of God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus first speaks as a new Moses, instructing His disciples on a mountain about a righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes…

by Peter LeithartApril 10, 2014
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Angels

Did Angels Marry People? The Sin of Cultural Intermarriage

The fall of the Sethites in Genesis 6 is the third fall of mankind, or the third degree of Adam’s original fall. Adam sinned in a Garden against his Father by stealing something he was supposed to wait to obtain. (“Every tree shall be food for you” Genesis 1:29.) Cain…

by James B. JordanApril 7, 2014
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Angels

Did Angels Marry People? The Sons of God in Genesis 6

The recent fantasy film Noah and a slightly related blog comment by my friend Douglas Wilson have stirred up again the question of whether the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 who married the “daughters of men” were fallen angels or the priestly line of Seth. Doug argues for angels,…

by James B. JordanApril 4, 2014
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Angels

The Angels of Jude

The prophecy of Jude concerns apostasy. An illustration of apostasy and its consequences is found in verse 6, which the New American Standard Bible translates this way: "And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for…

by James B. JordanApril 3, 2014
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Matthew

Women at the Cross

At His death, Jesus is surrounded by a Roman centurion and his cohort of Gentile solders. Matthew doesn't say that any disciples are there. But women are, and so is Joseph of Arimathea, identified as a “disciple” but, as John tells us, a “secret disciple for fear of the Jews,”…

by Peter LeithartMarch 31, 2014

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Philosophy

Giving and receiving

Pickstock offers a theological alternative to Derrida’s concern that giving is impossible since any hope of a return robs the gift of its character as gift and puts it instead into the category of mutually advantageous capitalist exchange. Pickstock points out that in renouncing “the return” as “an ethical category,”…

July 14, 2005
Philosophy

Lists

Pickstock uses the “list” as a crucial example of the dominance of asyndeton of modern discourse. Lists provide “a powerful organization of random phenomena,” but at the same time the order slips into chaos because there is nothing linking the “unrelated elements” of the list. They are merely juxtaposed spatially,…

July 14, 2005
Philosophy

Derrida’s indifference

Pickstock again: For Derrida, there is ultimately no real difference, since all difference is univocally violent. There are particular differences of this and that, but they are all different in the same way - violently different - so there is a “transcendent” sameness. Derrida’s absolute difference collapses is really penultimate…

July 14, 2005
Philosophy

Derrida’s indifference

Pickstock again: For Derrida, there is ultimately no real difference, since all difference is univocally violent. There are particular differences of this and that, but they are all different in the same way - violently different - so there is a “transcendent” sameness. Derrida’s absolute difference collapses is really penultimate…

July 14, 2005
Theology

Socrates and the erotic gaze

Catherine Pickstock argues that Socrates does not articulate a “metaphysical” view of self-presence or interiority. She focuses on the erotic character of knowledge in the Phaedrus, which she points out, radically undermines the interior/exterior boundary. Knowledge on this view always involves ecstasy, an attraction to an object outside, and the…

July 14, 2005

Structure in 2 Kings 16

2 Kings 16 is organized chiastically: 1. Formulaic introduction, 16:1-4 2. Threat to Jerusalem, and bribe of Tiglath-pileser, 16:5-9 3. State visit to Damascus, 16:10-11 (altar) 4. Ahaz ministers at the altar, 16:12-14 3’. Continuing worship at the altar, 16:15-16 2’. Tribute to Tiglath-pileser and plunder of temple, 16:17-18 1’.…

July 13, 2005

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