Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
If you’re a preacher looking for good commentaries on Ezra, you’ll struggle. Certainly to find ones that wrestle in good detail with the text. And certainly ones that don’t cost you an arm and a leg. There’s a good bit more for Nehemiah, which is odd, as the two are…
Quick thought experiment: try to pretend you’ve never read 1 John before. Read 1:1-6. Go ahead; I’ll wait. Now, on to v. 7: “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with ______….” What word would you expect in that blank, based…
In my work as a Bible translator, I was recently checking our translation team’s draft of Genesis 8:8, which says of Noah (translating the Hebrew quite literally): And he sent out the dove from with him to see: had the waters lessened from upon the face of the ground? Part…
Just in case a reader may not know Weinberg, he is a theoretical physicist and the winner of the Nobel prize in physics in 1979, as well as countless other prizes for his research. He is also a prolific, lucid, and captivating writer. If you want to read something on…
Colossians 1:15-20 is a famous passage in Paul’s epistles because it is a succinct and powerful poem. It appears even to have been a hymn. Given the uniquely Pauline language — “reconciliation” is a term used only by Paul — it should not seem odd to attribute the poem/hymn to…
Stalker (1979) is a film by Andrei Tarkovsky based on Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. It shows a day from the life of a stalker, a man who enters the so-called "Zone", an Alien landing site, where he leads people to a room that grants people’s innermost desires, which…
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1) There are repeated verbal links between the opening of 1 Kings 17 and the opening of chapter 18. The word of Yahweh comes to Elijah, telling him to ?go?E(17:2; 18:1). In both chapters, the word ?cut off?Eis used (the brook ?Cherith?E Jezebel?s ?cutting off?Eof prophets; the ?cutting off?Eof cattle).…
INTRODUCTION Elijah is a new Moses, and like Moses he confronts the ?Pharaoh?EAhab and his hundreds of ?magicians.?EBy his victory in this context, Yahweh not only humiliates the gods of the Canaanites, and the Israelites who act like Canaanites. He also calls and leads Israel to repentance (vv. 39-40). This…
David Hart describes the work of theology, as opposed to the work of metaphysics, as follows: “Theology is not an art that abstracts from history toward eternity, from facts toward principles, but one that - under the pressure of the history it is called upon to interpret - finds the…
Umberto Eco, ed. History of Beauty . Translated by Alastair McEwen. New York: Rizzoli, 2004. 438pp. Bursting with splashy reproductions of art work from the ancient Greeks to the present, Eco’s History of Beauty could pass for a survey of Western art. Eco’s purpose, however, is broader; he intends a…
From the anonymous 8th-century Liber Monstrorum , we learn about the following: Astomori: “The accounts of the Greeks say that there are also men devoid of a mouth, unlike all the others, and thus they allegedly cannot eat anything: according to the sources, moreover, they stay alive only by breathing…
Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety . New York: Pantheon, 2004. 306pp. “Every adult life,” Alain de Botton argues, “could be said to be defined by two great love stories.” The first is the romantic quest for sexual love and companionship, and it is the subject of innumerable poems, stories, and…
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