Some thoughts arising from a sermon by Toby Sumpter yesterday, where he worked out an understanding of holiness whose roots are in the first use of “holiness” terminology in Genesis 2. Sabbath is the original holy “thing,” and it is holy time, which is consummated time, the . . . . Continue Reading »
In Revelation 11, John is given a rod to measure out the courts of the temple. That picks up on the imagery of Ezekiel 40ff, where a bronze man measures out the holy space of the new temple. But there are other rods in the Old Testament. Egypt is a rod (Ezkiel 29:6), an unreliable rod that will . . . . Continue Reading »
Genesis 1:1:9-11: Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, . . . . Continue Reading »
Christians think of Judaizing as a Christian defection, but the charge has been leveled by Muslims against one another. Camilla Adang, for instance, has detailed how Ibn Hazm responded to what he thought were Jewish customs infiltrating the practices of Muslims in hte Malikite circle. He denounces . . . . Continue Reading »
The notion that the great sages of pagan antiquity got their ideas from Moses did not die with the Fathers. In the mid-seventeenth century, Theophilus Gale gave a massive defense of the same argument: “the wisest of the Heathens stole their choisest Notions and Comtempations, both Philologic, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan Sheehan had a fascinating article in the Journal of the History of Ideas several years ago, in which he explored the uses of the categories of “idolatry” and “sacrifice” in early modern theology, comparative religious studies, and politics. Along the way, he cited a . . . . Continue Reading »
Heidegger describes two ways of assessing the weight of a hammer. On the one hand, we can put it on a scale and get a numerical read-out. It weighs three pounds. What it’s for doesn’t make any difference. It’s a generic object on which gravity exerts a particular force, which we . . . . Continue Reading »
Lewis Mumford writes of the medieval organization of space: “The highest object in the city was the church spire which pointed toward heaven and dominated all the lesser buildings, as the church dominated their hopes and fears. Space was divided arbitrarily to represent the seven virtues or . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Heidegger’s essay on modern science, Newton’s theory of motion implied eight fundamental metaphysical shifts. First, because Newton’s theories applied to “every body,” the traditional distinction of heavenly and earthly bodies, and heavenly and earthy . . . . Continue Reading »
On Day 3, Yahweh gathers the sea and dry land appears. But the language of Genesis 1:9-10 concerning the “gathering” of seas is odd. IN verse 9, the verb most frequently means “wait” or “look for” (Genesis 49:18; Job 3:9; Psalm 25:3, 5, 21; 27:14; 37:9, 34; . . . . Continue Reading »
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