Alec Ryrie portrays what it meant to be an early Protestant in his Being Protestant in Reformation Britain.As the TLS reviewer points out, this is no longer a fashionable question: “Historians of the early Reformation now prefer to use the term ‘evangelicals,’ in recognition . . . . Continue Reading »
Greeks expressed their gratitude, FS Naiden notes (Smoke Signals for the Gods), with sacrifice:“Helliodorus, hellenizing his Phoenicians, says that Tyrians used such a formula after one of their number won at the Pythian games. Returning home with the victor, they sacrificed at the seaside, . . . . Continue Reading »
Many classicists suggest that Greek sacrifice was mechanical and automatic. One of the burdens of Naiden’s Smoke Signals for the Gods is to show otherwise. Sacrifices were only acceptable to the gods if the worshiper was ritually and morally pure.Naiden quoted Antiphon: “Many people . . . . Continue Reading »
Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for works, toil, and perseverance, for their rigorous testing of pretended apostles (Revelation 2:2-3). But then He lodges a stunning charge: They have left their first love (ten agapen sou ten proten aphekes).What does that mean? Agape in the New Testament . . . . Continue Reading »
When John sees Jesus in glory (Revelation 1:9-20), he describes him from head to toe and back (vv. 14-16). It’s a wasf, a blazon, like the descriptions of the Song of Songs. Jesus is the Lover, and He commissions John as His amanuensis to write love letters to His bride. We know these letters . . . . Continue Reading »
The translation of the name Yahweh into Greek as ho on, “the One who is,” has been seen as a Platonizing or Hellenizing move. Sean McDonough (YHWH at Patmos, 194) demurs:“God’s declaration of his name, ‘I am who I am,’ served as a natural bridge between . . . . Continue Reading »
FS Naiden ends his Smoke Signals for the Gods with a fascinating discussion of the contrast between Greek and Hebrew conceptions of God (323-4)Greek gods were watchers of sacrifices, watchers of humans “as if attending a play” (322). They passed judgments, but the judgments were . . . . Continue Reading »
CE Douglas points out (Last Word in Prophecy, 134-5) that Greeks as much as Hebrews were obsessed with sevens:“There were seven wonders of the world, seven sages, seven metals, seven tones and so on. Thebes, the city of the Phoenician Cadmus who taught the Greeks their letters, had seven . . . . Continue Reading »
When Shadrach, Meschach and Abed-nego emerge from the furnace unscathed, Nebuchadnezzar praises their God, whose angel saved the men from the fire. The three men “put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve any god except their own . . . . Continue Reading »
F.S. Naiden’s Smoke Signals for the Gods is a landmark study of Greek sacrifice.Naiden’s main opponents are Walter Burkert (Homo Necans), who views sacrifice psychologically as an act of sublimated violence, and Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, whose Cuisine of . . . . Continue Reading »
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