Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Paul contends that with the death of Christ on the Cross, there was an overcoming of the Principalities and the Powers (Col. 2:15). A great deal has been written on this subject over the last 60 years. 1 What was for a long time either ignored, or regarded by liberal…
The Gospel reading for the third Sunday in Lent this year (John 2:13-22) was enclosed by two verses (13 and 23) each of which mentions Jerusalem, the city where God chose to place His Name and habitation, and the Passover, the festival which, above all others, speaks of the Lamb…
The 2018 Theopolis Easter term course on the theology of the sexes was a resounding success. Visiting instructor Dr. Alastair Roberts (PhD, Durham) laid out a rich biblical theology of sexuality, before addressing a variety of philosophical, political, and ethical issues. Roberts stressed that our questions about sex and gender,…
Click HERE for part 1 of this series, and HERE for part 2. The recurring characterization problems with such Strong Female Characters arise in no small measure from the struggle to show that men and women are interchangeable and can compete and cooperate with each other on the same terms.…
The Rise of the Action Heroine Click HERE for part 1 of this series. Partly as a result of this everywoman heroine trend, partly in order to be more inclusive in traditionally male dominated genres, partly in order to push back against stereotypes, partly in order to legitimate eye candy…
I was in prison and you came to me. (Matthew 25:36) From the New York Times: U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners. Indeed, the United States…
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During the Second Temple period, the Talmud says, "the temptation for idolatry was slaughtered" (quoted in Haberthal and Margalit, Idolatry , 2). Then the fight returned, with Maimonides. Now, though, idolatry was a contrast-concept to a new conception of God. Halberthal and Margalit summarize: "The central effort of philosophical religion…
The First of the Ten Words speaks to the question of whom we worship: We are to have no other gods before the face of Yahweh. The Second Word had to do with how we worship: We are to approach God as He commands us to approach Him. The Second…
There are Ten Words, but they are grouped in several different ways. The first two commandments stand out from the rest. Only in the first three commandments does the Lord speak in the first person (FW Farrar): “I am Yahweh your God . . . thou shalt have no other…
A little over a year ago, I wrote the following in a post reflecting on the Hebrew term tabnit, used in Exodus and Chronicles to describe the heavenly "pattern" of the sanctuary: "Deuteronomy 4:16-18 uses the word five times, not of a 'model' or 'plan' but of likenesses made according…
Franz Rosenzweig didn't buy Maimonides philosophical critique of the Bible's anthropomorphism. In 1928, he wrote a short essay on the topic and, in the summary of Leora Batnitzky ( Idolatry and Representation ) he "argues that the tendency to rationalize away biblical anthropomorphisms . . . is both dishonest and…
In Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice , Ivan Strenski recounts an epochal shift in the study of religion, and of sacrifice in particular, that took place in the France of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, the "lions" of the field of religion were…
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