Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Flying scrolls. Red horses. Beasts coming out of the sea. Winged women. The list goes on. Apocalyptic literature in the Bible is like a cross between science fiction and Marvel comics. And the Bible has a fair bit of this sort of thing. Daniel sees visions in Babylon, Zechariah sees…
Trinity House Institute has taken a new name, the Theopolis Institute. This striking new name expresses our unique vision and mission and captures the unified purpose behind all our specific programs and activities. We still have Bible, liturgy, and culture in our tagline. We still offer the same courses on…
Adam Kotsko offers a socio-political variation on the Christus Victor atonement theory in his 2010 study, The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation . He does this by explaining "the devil" in terms of the Hegelian concept of "objective spirit," Geist . As Kotsko puts it, Geist "refers…
Two factors keep Nahtali Meshel from discussing the meaning of sacrifice until late in his The "Grammar" of Sacrifice . The first has to do with the texts he draws from: "P says little about the meaning of its rituals" (174). The other has to do with the grammatical theory…
Chapter 5 of Naphtali Meshel's The "Grammar" of Sacrifice focuses on "praxemics," the physical actions of sacrificial ritual. Praxemes are constituted by six elements: an "atomact," an elementary physical act or gesture; an actor; an object that is acted up; a target for the action and often for the object…
Two chapters of Naphtali Meshel’s The “Grammar” of Sacrifice cover what he calls “jugation” and “hierarchies.” The first involves the addition of other materials to an animal offering. Jugates include wine, cereal, and oil that are added to the animals (zoemes) that are offered in sacrifice. Some jugates are coordinated…
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Isaiah 57 begins with a chiastically arranged fragment of wisdom literature. Verse 1 begins and ends with “righteous one” ( tzaddiyq ): A. The righteous man perishes B. there is not a man there of heart C. men of loyalty taken away B’. there is not consideration A’. for from…
Ralph Smith continues his series of studies in Deuteronomy at the Trinity House site.
Creation is threefold: Heaven, earth, sea. Alternatively, creation is sixfold, because each zone has things in it: Heaven and things, earth and things, sea and things (Revelation 10:6). A nice symmetry: The sixfold creation was formed over six days. At the origin and end of the sixfold creation, there has…
For seven periods of time, Nebuchadnezzar lived like a beast, eating grass, his hair growing like wings (Daniel 4:28-33). Then he became human again. Like an Enlightenment philosopher, Daniel describes this as a restoration of “reason,” that most distinctive human trait. Twice, the king declares, “my reason (Ar. manda ‘)…
NT Wright has sparked controversy for saying that Jesus announces the kingdom as the end of exile. It’s hardly a new thought. In his discussion of the “particular and general” in his Tyconius: The Book of Rules , Tyconius observes an alternating movement in the prophets. Prophets speak of the…
Exodus says that Israel was in Egypt 430 years, Genesis says 400. Can we just round them off to make them coincide? Tyconius ( The Book of Rules ) isn’t satisfied with that. Perhaps, he suggests, “they were not in slaver for the whole time? We need to find out,…
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