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Ascension

Ascension and Eucharist

It’s a simple point, obviously biblical and creedal: Jesus of Nazareth ascended into heaven as the God-man, and He remains the God-man in all his specific particularity from now to the end. He is Jesus the Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Duh! But Douglas Farrow shows in his…

by Peter LeithartMay 27, 2013
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Theopolis News

Register for Trinity Term Class

You can now register for the very first Trinity House intensive class, "How to Read the Bible," taught by James Jordan and Peter Leithart. There will be a kick-off welcome for students on the evening of Sunday, August 25, and the class will be held at Trinity Presbyterian Church ,…

by Peter LeithartMay 22, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy as Narrative-Law

This series of essays will address the food laws in Deuteronomy 14:1-21. To some, this may seem like a work of supererogation. After all, why should a Christian be interested in outdated “laws” from the book of Deuteronomy? I hope to show that meditation on this portion of Scripture is…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 20, 2013
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Isaiah

Apocalyptic Patience

This essay was first published in 2011 in Credenda/Agenda . Isaiah 24 begins the section of Isaiah known as the “little apocalypse.” It’s a good name for this chapter. It’s a text of terror. The world is coming apart at the seams. The earth is emptied; and not only that,…

by Peter LeithartMay 15, 2013
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Biblical Studies

Anti Anti-Supercessionism

This article was first published in 2010 in Credenda/Agenda . In recent years, mainstream theology has begun to recognize the disaster that followed from the Marcionism of classical liberalism. R. Kendall Soulen is a leading figure in efforts to restore the importance of the Old Testament to Christian theology. In…

by Peter LeithartMay 13, 2013
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Deuteronomy

Law and History: How to Read the Law of Moses

This is the last in a series of studies on Deuteronomy 22:30-23:8. In this series, I have offered an interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:30-23:8 which suggests that a simple surface reading of the text does not do justice to Moses’ or God’s intention, that the larger historical and legal context in…

by Ralph Allan SmithMay 8, 2013

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Holy and Profane

Students of Ancient Near Eastern religions and cultures have typically assumed that the peoples of the ANE operated, like ancient Israelites, with a dichotomy of holy and profane. Beate Pongratz-Leisten doubts this, both for Mesopotamia and for Israel. The notion that this dichotomy is a universal religious structures goes back…

July 26, 2014

Ritual and Trascendence

K. van der Toorn has a 1989 article summarizing the purity system of ancient Mesopotamia. He describes purity rules as a form of temple etiquette. What makes something unclean is not that it is immoral but that it is displeasing in a particular setting, in this case displeasing before the…

July 26, 2014

Doing Righteousness

Rivka and Moshe Ulmer summarize rabbinic teaching about charitable giving in Righteous Giving to the Poor . The book includes an overview of rabbinic literature in general before it gets to its main topic. Rich in quotation, the section on tzedakah examines the theological underpinnings of charity, the this- and…

July 25, 2014

Conversion to Civil Society

Lida V. Nedilsky’s Converts to Civil Society is a sociological study of civil society in contemporary Hong Kong. But the use of the religious term “convert” is not accidental. Nedilsky argues that Christian conversion in Hong Kong opens up possibilities for other forms of voluntary association, both religious and non-religious.…

July 25, 2014

Making Money

Ole Bjerg ( Making Money ) doesn’t believe the classic “commodity” accounts of the rise of money, found in both Adam Smith and Marx. Both posit an original barter economy that is made more efficient by the introduction of a commodity that is used as a medium of exchange. Bjerg…

July 25, 2014

Body, Soul, Spirit

Gerd Theissen’s contribution to The Depth of the Human Person sharply challenges mainstream views of Paul’s anthropology. It’s not that Paul’s theory is holistic rather than dualistic. That assumption is based on a faulty understanding of ancient anthropology. A holistic anthropology doesn’t necessarily imply a positive view of the body,…

July 25, 2014

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