The fate of Euhemerus

Frank Manuel shows that Euhemerism remains a very live option as an explanation of the origins of religions into the eighteenth century ( The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods , ch. III). Isaac Newton took a primarily Euhemerist approach in his Chronology , and Isaac Newton was no idiot. . . . . Continue Reading »

God the Poet

In a chapter on Hamann in The Eighteenth Century Confronts the Gods , Frank Manuel is careful to distinguish Hamann’s views from “the commonplace tradition which explained the wide usage of myths, fables, parables, allegories by the wise rational legislators of antiquity as a . . . . Continue Reading »

Contextualization and Cultural Lenses

“The mere fact that in changing cultural and religious settings we find it hard to understand or communicate key biblical teachings is not,” writes Veli-Matti Karkkainen in Christ and Reconciliation: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, vol. 1 (324), “a . . . . Continue Reading »

Sacrificial resurrection

In the aforementioned article in JETS , Blocher notes that the New Testament treats Levitical sacrifices as types of Christ’s redemption, but adds that there is also a discontinuity: The intimate and essential bond between Christ’s death and his resurrection does not receive a clear . . . . Continue Reading »

Metaphor and Logos

In a 2004 article in JETS, Henri Blocher examines how recent philosophers have attempted to use metaphor to break through the “flatism” of Positivism. He agrees that Positivism must be opposed, but argues that it is best opposed on the grounds of a biblical ontology: “Under the . . . . Continue Reading »

Abstract Atonement

Rudisill ( The doctrine of the atonement in Jonathan Edwards and his successors , 114-5) says that for Edwards “Christ’s work per se does not affect man. In the final analysis, it does not deal with man’s predicament. President Edwards’ doctrine of the Atonement is a . . . . Continue Reading »

Trinity and Atonement

In his analysis of The doctrine of the atonement in Jonathan Edwards and his successors , DP Rudisill says that Edwards sets the Father’s justice in opposition to the Son’s love. This cannot be, of course: “If Christ be the perfect revelation of God, the attributes which He . . . . Continue Reading »

Epistemological Crisis

After a long and sobering examination of the disagreements among Protestants, Brad Gregory ( The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society ) draws the obvious conclusion: Whatever its merits as a theological principle, sola scriptura failed to unite the Protestant . . . . Continue Reading »

Transubstantiation and Univocity

Gregory ( The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society ) follows Amos Finkelstein’s genealogical tracing of the modern scientific worldview to Scotist univocity. To illustrate the effect of Scotism on the Reformers, he points to their rejection of . . . . Continue Reading »