Jonathan Edwards observes in his Notes on Scripture that the temple was built on a threshing floor “where wheat was wont to be threshed that it might become bread to support men’s life.” Like everything else about the temple system, this constituted a type of Christ: “The . . . . Continue Reading »
God waited to send His Son, but, Edwards argued, he did not wait to shine light to the Gentiles. According to Edwards, God’s actions throughout the Old Testament era were designed to catch the world’s attention, not just Israel’s. As McDermott ( Jonathan Edwards Confronts the . . . . Continue Reading »
In an essay on the chronologer Joseph Scaliger in Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450-1800 , Anthony Grafton remarks on the work of Gottfried Buchholzer, whom he calls “one of the most serious Protestant chronologers”: He “tabulated . . . . Continue Reading »
Walter Burkert’s The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age and his Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture , along with ML West’s massive The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth . . . . Continue Reading »
In his editorial introduction to Sermons and Discourses, 1720-1723 (The Works of Jonathan Edwards Series, Volume 10) (v. 10) (228-30), Wilson Kimnach emphasizes the central importance of typology in Edwards’s thinking. It was not simply a way of harmonizing old and new, but a clue to a . . . . Continue Reading »
James Jordan discusses biblical chronology with Pastor Ralph Smith at the Trinity House site. Hit the link and look to the bottom of the page. . . . . Continue Reading »
“Each one’s death is his own” seems like an obvious truism, but in fact it’s culturally specific. In the Bible, the dying gathers together his family for final words, blessings, sometimes curses (cf. Genesis 49), and after he dies he is “gathered to his people.” . . . . Continue Reading »
Christina Rosetti wrote a number of books dealing with biblical and spiritual themes. In one, Letter and Spirit , she suggests that it is “a genuine though not a glaring breach of the Second commandment, when instead of learning the lesson plainly set down for us in Holy Writ, we protrude . . . . Continue Reading »
Is the fact that God reveals Himself in human language a “paradox”? It might seem so. God is incomprehensible, and always exceeds our conceptualizations and verbalizations of Him. To attempt to render this incomprehensible God into human language, with its limits and ambiguities, seems . . . . Continue Reading »
Benedict XVI’s God’s Word: Scripture, Tradition, Office has some very good things to say, and some very questionable things. The good first. Christ, he emphasizes, is revelation, and the presence of revelation is the presence of Christ. Scripture presents this presence in two ways. . . . . Continue Reading »
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