In a 2005 Syracuse University dissertation on purity, Yohan Yoo traces some of the changes in purity regulations that took place in his three selected ancient purity systems - Egypt, Israel, and Greece. In the first, he finds what he describes as a “democratization of the mortuary texts” . . . . Continue Reading »
Israel is prohibited from uncovering nakedness of anyone who is “flesh of your flesh” (Leviticus 18:6). A man and a woman who already have a “flesh” relationship - whether biological or “covenantal” kinship - cannot add another one-flesh sexual relationship. . . . . Continue Reading »
Micah ends with promises of deliverance from sin. “I” bear Yahweh’s indignation because of my sin, but He will deliver me (7:9). Yahweh will have compassion and “tread our iniquities under foot” (7:19).It’s a new exodus, as in the days when Yahweh performed signs . . . . Continue Reading »
Many have observed the connections between consumerism and abortion. It’s an ancient insight.The prophet Micah charged that Zion had been built with blood and Jerusalem with violent injustice (Micah 4:10). He immediately followed with a charge against Judah’s leaders: Judges accept . . . . Continue Reading »
It was much better for God to create humanity from one individual than from several, Augustine argues (City of God, 12.21). Noting the difference between the creation of animals from the ground and the creation of Eve from Adam, Augustine notes, “as to the other animals, He created some . . . . Continue Reading »
“What kind of an appeal does this have for a reader - especially one from a post-Christian society like our own-who does not share Herbert’s theological premisses?” asks Stephen Prickett in his TLS review of John Drury’s Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George . . . . Continue Reading »
Augustine discerns an inner connection between imperium and pornography.Imperium is the political form of the libido dominandi. Pornography is the sexual form of the same libido. Both imperium and porn reduce human persons to bodies to be manipulated for the manipulator’s . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1907, Ira M. Price, a member of the original faculty of the University of Chicago and professor of ancient languages and literatures from 1892-1925, concluded a discussion of the parallels between Genesis and other ANE documents with this observation (The Monuments and the Old . . . . Continue Reading »
Jody Bottum’s new An Anxious Age is as idiosyncratic, quirky, eloquent, and insightful as its author.Bottum offers a spiritual reading of contemporary America, starting from the insight that American culture has been re-enchanted, our “metaphysical realm . . . repopulated with . . . . Continue Reading »
David Nelson’s The Interruptive Word is a lucid exploration of the difficult theology of Eberhard Jungel, stressing, as Nelson’s subtitle has it, “the sacramental structure of God’s relation to the world.”At the center of Jungel’s theology is the claim that, . . . . Continue Reading »
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