Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
Many years ago, while perusing Janice Anderson’s revised doctoral dissertation, Matthew’s Narrative Web: Over, and Over, and Over again , I was impressed by her attention to literary structures of repetition within and across Matthew’s Gospel. 1 Her research, in part, nudged me closer toward my present conviction that Matthew…
Abbreviated Introduction to the Series Scripture is absolutely dripping with animal metaphors. Animal traits, characteristics, and appearances are attributed to God, Man, Angels, Nations, Armies. Since animals are the lowest creature in the three-tiered hierarchy, they are useful to metaphorically focus on a single aspect of God (bold like a…
“Like a lily among the thorns, so is my love among the maidens… My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures among the lilies.” Song 2:2, 16 In chapter two of the Song of Solomon, the Beloved compares his Love to a lily among thorns. The language of…
Introduction From the very beginning, angels and animals have played mediating roles between God and Man. Just as the World was made three-tiered (Heaven, Earth, Deep), so the creatures were made (Angels, Men, Animals). Before Christ came to build the permanent bridge across the chasm between God and Man, various…
Matthew 13, the third major discourse of the apostle’s gospel, is comprised almost entirely of parables. While it may seem that all the parables serve the same purpose in fulfilling the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 13:14), the parables found in verses 44–52, at the very least, function outside that purpose. This…
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Erhard Gerstenberger ( Leviticus , 34) claims that “The completely burned sacrifice is probably an Israelite peculiarity.” James Watts ( Ritual and Rhetoric ) disagrees. He argues (75) that “The practice of burning offerings gained popularity during the first millennium and spread from its original home in northwest Syria. Burnt…
Sacramental interpretations of the blood and water from Jesus’ side are too tempting to resist. We ought not resist them. Of course, it is the blood of the new covenant and the water of baptism (John 20:34). But the order brings us up short: Not water and blood, but blood…
It’s one of the most famous lines in one of the most famous songs: “You spread a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23). Israel knows very well that this is what Yahweh the Shepherd does. This is how Israel was born as a people -…
Ancient Israelites offered the inner organs of sacrificial animals - entrails, kidneys, a portion of the liver. The heart is never mentioned. In all of the complicated sacrificial instructions of Leviticus, the word leb never appears, even once. We learn what happens to the stomach (Deuteronomy 18:3) but not the…
If we stay with the strict terminology of Leviticus, the word “sacrifice” ( zabach ) is not a generic term for offering animals on altars but is used specifically of the “peace offering,” often in phrases like “the sacrifice of the peace offerings.” The burnt or ascension offering ( olah…
As Wilfried Warning points out in his engaging study, Literary Artistry in Leviticus , the book of Leviticus uses word repetitions to create meaningful literary and theological patterns. At times, the word repetitions are designed to highlight the themes of a particular section. “Fat” ( chalev ) occurs twelve times…
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