Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Higher critics have, for a long time, posited a Second Isaiah to account for the structural and tone differences in the book from chapter 40 on. Now, we do believe in a Second Isaiah, but believe that the form critics have generally suffered from a lack of imagination both in…
A couple of the most serious mistranslations in our Bibles are found in the book of Leviticus. The main reason these errors have gone unreformed, I believe, is because Leviticus is simply not studied often enough, so the problem has never been fully addressed. The first mistranslation is found right…
Thomas Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , is really a parenthesis inside of the larger reality of Christian history. Progress and forward movement inside of science is a footnote to the larger and more general reality of covenant renewals in both Biblical and Christian history. The fundamental mark…
James Jordan, in the June/July 1995 Biblical Horizons, wrote a very helpful essay, "The Great Hangover," the gist of which I entirely agree with. The theme of the essay was that the Church to move forward must shuck off the old husks of Hellenism, Rabbinism, and undo admiration for all…
Traditionally, the three offices in the Presbyterian churches have been teaching elder, ruling elder, and deacon. These have been associated with priest, elder, and Levite respectively. We have seen that the deacon is in fact an apprentice and assistance elder. We have also seen that Levites as well as priests…
John 7:39 interprets Jesus’ offer of living water as an offer of the Spirit to those who believe, "for," John continues, "the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified." John was not making an ontological statement about the Spirit, as if the Spirit did not exist until…
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Ancient Greeks sacrificed and ate pigs and dogs. Israelites were forbidden to do so. Ancient Greeks made blood pudding from sacrifices. Israelites were not supposed to eat blood. Ancient Greeks sometimes sacrificed pregnant sows. Israelites were commanded not to take both the eggs and the hen. Greek sacrificial goats were…
Was sacrificial meat distributed equally or hierarchically in ancient Greece? Some have resolved the question diachronically: Archaic Greece had a more democratic sacrificial distribution that democratic classical Athens. Gunnel Ekroth concludes that the two systems lived side-by-side. Choice pieces were given to dignitaries and priests, but the bulk of the…
Jesus charges the Laodicean angel with being lukewarm, neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3). This is understandably and rightly taken as a symbol of their indecisiveness and lethargic piety. But there’s a whole lot more going on. Hot and cold match day and night (Genesis 8:22). “Heat of the day”…
A few scattered thoughts on 1 Samuel 17. Saul offers David his armor for battle, but David refuses (v. 39). After the battle, though, David accepts the armor of Jonathan, signifying David’s elevation to crown prince (18:1-4). David kills Goliath with a rock, trusting in Yahweh the Rock. There is…
By the time a child is two, he or she has developed “narrative” memory, the ability to “store” and recall events in story form. This is essential to the development of thought and self-reflection, but it is, Daniel Siegel argues, a shared, social process ( The Developing Mind , 60-1),…
Millennials aren’t apathetic or lazy, argues Zachary Fine in the NYT . They are simply paralyzed, and pluralism is one of the causes. “The art critic Craig Owens once wrote that pluralism is not a ‘recognition, but a reduction of difference to absolute indifference, equivalence, interchangeability.’ Some millennials who were…
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