Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (HDM) trilogy truly deserves all the epithets hurled at it, and Christians are gearing up for the December release of the film version of The Golden Compass , the first book in the trilogy. We needn’t worry. Hollywood is working its magic. Chris . . . . Continue Reading »
For anyone looking for Latin texts of Augustine on the web, the most complete site I’ve been able to find is: www.augustinus.it/index2.htm. Also, check out J.J. O’Donnell’s Confessions commentary at ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html. . . . . Continue Reading »
In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron object to Moses’ Cushite wife. Miriam becomes leprous, is excluded from the camp, and restored on the eighth day. That is to say: The Messiah’s Jewish sister objects to the Gentile bride, and is cast out of the camp, but then she is cleansed and restored. . . . . Continue Reading »
Hicks again: He organizes his discussion of the New Covenant fulfillment of the sacrificial system in the phrases “life surrendered,” “life transformed,” and “life shared.” Reconciliation is made on the basis of life surrendered, blood shed, but that’s not . . . . Continue Reading »
FCN Hicks writes in his 1946 book on sacrifice that the burning of an animal on the altar was not destructive but transforming: “The offering is not destroyed but transformed, sublimated, etherealised, so that it can ascend in smoke to the heaven above, to the dwelling-place of God.” He . . . . Continue Reading »
Only God, Augustine argues in his treatise on music, acts on rational souls directly, “per seipsum.” Human beings operate on one another’s souls through intervening bodies, that is, through the words and other signs. God has arranged the world this way, he says, as a check on . . . . Continue Reading »
Many translators and interpreters of Augustine’s de doctrina Christiana translate “signa data” as “conventional signs.” But there’s something to be said for taking the phrase literally (as some commentators do). The difference between naturalia and data, . . . . Continue Reading »
Shakespeare recognized that something new was in the offing, but the actual situation of England and Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was far more complicated that Timon of Athens suggests. The gift-society to which Timon is attached was not being completely replaced, nor was the . . . . Continue Reading »
I want to try to bridge the gap between medieval and Renaissance obsession with gift and gratitude and the Enlightenment where these are either privatized or reduced or ignored altogether. Let me begin with some additional thoughts on Timon of Athens, following the argument of an insightful 1947 . . . . Continue Reading »
Jenson’s article “What is the Point of Trinitarian Theology?” in Chrisoph Schwobel’s Trinitarian Theology Today offers one of the most succinct statements of Jenson’s theology. He begin with the observation that “theology” and particularly . . . . Continue Reading »
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