Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
"Vanity of vanities", says the Preacher. "All is vanity". Life, we are told in the book of Ecclesiastes, is a repetitious, wearisome cycle; all that is and all that will be has already been. There is nothing new under the sun. What is crooked cannot be made straight, what is…
The Bible tells us that when God created the earth, He set up three zones of life. The first was the world itself. The second was the holy land of Eden. And the third was the Garden in Eden, God’s sanctuary. God told Adam and Eve that every tree was…
In our survey of Biblical chronology we have arrived at the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which provide chronological information for the period after the return from exile, the Restoration Period of Old Testament history. The question we begin to address in this essay is whether the Artaxerxes of these…
These verses from the Sermon on the Mount are generally taken in connection with Jesus’ earlier statement concerning adultery in the heart (vv. 27-28); the eye and the hand have obvious relevance to the sin of adultery. At the same time, most commentators admit that the principle of avoiding occasions…
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of…
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to…
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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,”…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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’.…
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