Genesis 17 is the great transition in the story of Abraham. Just prior, he has fathered a child with Hagar. It’s the high point of the story so far: Abram, the Big Father, finally has a son. But it’s not the son who will carry the promise. It’s the best flesh can do, but . . . . Continue Reading »
Nebuchadnezzar “broke” ( shavar ) the bronze furnishings of the temple and carried the bronze away to Babylon. “Breaking” is just what Israel was supposed to do to the idols of the land ( shavar is used in Exodus 23:24; 24:13; Deuteronomy 7:5). It is what faithful kings did . . . . Continue Reading »
The list of (mostly) bronze items taken from the temple into Babylonian exile in 2 Kings 25:13-17 is intricately put together. It begins and ends with references to pillars (vv. 13a, 17), and then mentions the bronze sea and the water stands (vv. 13, 16; the order is reversed the second time - . . . . Continue Reading »
What would Israel learn from telling and retelling the story of Abraham, the father of their nation? For one thing, they would be receiving a far different discipleship and pedagogy than nations whose fathers were phallic gods. David Leeming notes that “All Australian male ancestor gods of . . . . Continue Reading »
Greeks, like Jews, believed that corpses defiled. According to Robert Parker’s classic Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Clarendon Paperbacks) , a dead body defiled not only the people present, but also the house, which had to be cleansed after the body was removed. . . . . Continue Reading »
The cult of an ancient temple was largely cultivation of the cult image. Paul Johnson describes the activities in a typical Egyptian temple: “Except for Re, the sun-god, who was cultivated in the open, images were placed in the innermost sanctuary of the temple and the rite might even take . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Old Testament, “flesh” physically describes the musculature of the body; the skin is the boundary between the world and the flesh, and there is a distinction made between the flesh and the heart or internal organs. Both in animals and men, “flesh” denotes the . . . . Continue Reading »
At the beginning of Galatians 3, Paul reminds the Galatians of his first visit to them and says that Christ was “publicly portrayed” before them. This was before their eyes; now, someone has laid an “evil eye” on them. This verse is sometimes taken as a reference to the . . . . Continue Reading »
Theodore Lewis assesses Tryggve Mettinger’s comparative study of Israel’s aniconic tradition in a 1998 issue of JAOS . Lewis’s enumerated conclusions are (the next few paragraph are directly quoted): 1. Aniconic traditions (i.e., Mettinger’s “de facto . . . . Continue Reading »
Greeks also seem to have practiced some form of ancestor cult and, perhaps related, a cult of heroes. In a detailed discussion of the archeology of the cult of the dead in early Greece in the American Journal of Archeology , Carla Antonaccio summarizes the evidence that she wishes to test by . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
