Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states: We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society: a nod, a handshake,…
Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato , virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and "presto!" the sacraments confer grace.…
When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do…
Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus…
Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the…
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According to Norman Kemp Smith ( Problems in the Cartesian Philosophy ), “The great achievement of Galileo and Descartes in physical science consisted in a new theory of motion. Whereas by the Greek Atomists and by Aristotle motion was anthropomorphically conceived, as, like human activity, coming into being, exhausting itself…
Richard II is often cited as Shakespeare's prime example of a divine-right king, a king by ceremony, the paragon of sacramental kingship. His play depicts the unraveling of medieval kingship and the formation of a new basis for politics. As Alexander Leggatt ( Shakespeare's Political Drama ) argues, however, the…
MD Goulder argues that death and resurrection is the narrative pattern of Acts ( Type and History in Acts ). In most cases, there is no actual death. There is near-death, and then deliverance: “The apostolic college, Peter, Paul, in turn go down to the pit: and from the pit…
Paul Cantor ( Shakespeare's Rome ) argues that Shakespeare wrote Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra as companion plays, marking the birth of the Republic and its decadent decline in the early empire. As evidence, he points to overlapping themes and literary features, and notes that there is a political and…
Descartes's early critics had many qualms about his new philosophy, but for theological critics the central question was how to square his views with the dogma of transubstantiation. Descartes claimed to be a faithful Roman Catholic, but philosophically he was opposed to the hylomorphic theory of matter on which traditional…
MD Goulder ( Type and History in Acts ) points out that the history recorded in Acts doesn't follow the Jerusalem-Judea-Samaria-ends of earth pattern that Jesus leads us to expect at the beginning of the book: “The four places are being given in their theological order: the holy city, the…
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