Barth famously describes the incarnation as the Son’s journey into a far country, borrowing a phrase from the story of the Prodigal Son. Is Jesus the Prodigal? The parable of Luke 15 doesn’t completely work as an allegory of Jesus; it’s an allegory of Israel in the first . . . . Continue Reading »
Israel, heaven and earth, the islands are to “rejoice and be glad” in Yahweh (Psalms 14:7; 16:9; 31:7; 32:11; 97:1, 8). The combination of terms is used in liturgical contexts; rejoicing and being glad is an act of worship. Then Proverbs 23:24-25: Father and mother rejoice and are . . . . Continue Reading »
2 Thessalonians 3:13-15: But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. And if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a . . . . Continue Reading »
The exodus is the paradigm of salvation in the New Testament. Like Moses, Jesus escapes from murderous Herod, saves us from our enemies, and on the Mount of Transfiguration He discusses His coming “exodus” with Moses and Elijah. Jesus dies as the Passover Lamb, baptism is our . . . . Continue Reading »
Did Alexandrian Jews support the Arians? Athanasius charged as much, and his assessment has been found convincing to more than one modern historian. Victor Tcherikover wrote, “Jews became openly hostile to the new rulers” after Constantine’s conversion, “and proffered . . . . Continue Reading »
Jews settled in Alexandria as soon as it was Alexandria, that is, in 332 BC. In the first century AD, they were a powerful and sizable minority of the city. Between 66 and 117 AD, however, they suffered a massive reversal. Robert Louis Wilken ( Judaism and the Early Christian . . . . Continue Reading »
James Miller reviews John Yates’s The Spirit and Creation in Paul (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2.Reihe) in the latest Review of Biblical Literature . Like John Levison, Yates places Paul in the context of Judaism; on Paul himself, Miller summarizes . . . . Continue Reading »
Pierre Bourdieu defined ” doxa ” (originally, “opinion” or in the NT, “glory”) in a variety of ways, but a couple are illuminating. Doxa is “the world of tradition experienced as a ‘natural world’ and taken for granted,” the set of . . . . Continue Reading »
Traditionally, “Arian” was believed to apply to a homogenous and well-organized heretical movement that arose in the fourth century, which took its theological cues from Arius. Recent scholars doubt most of that. Arius was a conservative, not a deviant. Arius was a lesser . . . . Continue Reading »
In the aforementioned book, Burrus several times cites Nancy Jay’s ( Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity ) arresting observation that “birth by itself can never provide sure evidence” of paternity, yet evidence of paternity provides the . . . . Continue Reading »
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