Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what…
An Overview Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail. (The original form of…
29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If…
We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in…
Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the…
24. Four things are small on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise; 25. The ants are not a strong folk, But they prepare their food in the summer; 26. The coneys are not a mighty folk, Yet they make their houses in the rocks; 27. The locusts have no…
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Barth quotes one CJ Nitzsch on the significance of the doctrine of the Trinity: ?So long as theism only distinguishes God and the world and never God from God, it is always caught in a relapse or transition to the pantheistic or some other denial of absolute being. There can…
Walsh has this intriguing comment about the man stone to death for blasphemy in Lev 24: “The man is oddly anonymous, although his Israelite mother, his maternal grandfather, and his tribal forefather are all named. This is a more subtle invocation of the law of the talion: the man who…
Jerome Walsh (in Style and Structure in Biblical Hebrew Narrative ) points out the chiastic structure of Gen 12:6b: Pharaoh gives Abram “flocks-and-herds/jackasses/men servants//women servants/jenny asses/camels.” This arrangement highlights the gift of slaves to Abram, anticipating the “gift” of Hebrew slaves to Moses in the exodus. Abram leaves Egypt not…
Ever since first reading Milbank’s Theology and Society Theory , I’ve been intrigued by the work of JG Hamann. A recent brief article by John R. Betz in Modern Theology (April 2004) raised my interest again. Betz reviews Oswald Bayer’s recent Vernunft ist Sprache: Hamanns Metakritik Kants , and provides…
Iain Provan, Philips Long, and Tremper Longman’s A Biblical History of Israel begins with several excellent chapters on OT historiography, and on historiographical issues in general. Some highlights of the discussion (highlights to me at least): 1) The authors challenge the distinction between primary and secondary sources because it is…
For all those readers out there who read Polish: Several of my articles have been translated and published in the Reformacja w Polsce ( Reformation in Poland ), a quaterly published by Evangelical Reformed Church in Wroclaw, Poland. Bogumil Jarmulak sent me the following links: “Why Sacraments” ( Dlaczego sakramenty…
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