Father and mother

At the beginning of the first of his Two Treatises of Government , John Locke refutes the Scriptural arguments of Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha ( Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’ and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) ). Filmer claims that political authority is . . . . Continue Reading »

Insight of Unbelievers

Deeana Copeland Klepper, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages (Jewish Culture and Contexts) . Philadelphia:University ofPennsylvania Press, 2007.   Modern biblical criticism is the product of Jewish-Christian cooperation. On . . . . Continue Reading »

Symbolic Violence

John Thompson explains Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence in his introduction to Language and Symbolic Power : “Instead of analyzing the exchange of gifts in terms of a formal structure of reciprocity, in the manner of Lévi–Strauss, Bourdieu views it as a mechanism . . . . Continue Reading »

Girard’s limits

Godbout ( The World of the Gift , 209-10) gives this searing critique of Girard. For Girard, he says, “violence is primary . . . no love is possible. There are only hatred and ‘desire.’” Girard’s own analysis undercuts his theory: “In his discussion of the . . . . Continue Reading »

More for Kids

The Leviticus system has five basic offerings. Below I use the more literal translations of the Hebrew terms that I’ve used for years: What’s usually called the “whole burnt” offering is better translated as “ascension” offering; the word for “grain . . . . Continue Reading »

You know, for kids

I’ve been teaching an Old Testament survey class to the 5-11 year olds at church this summer. It’s a five-week overview, and I’m trying to teach them the overall structures of the Old Testament and of particular books. In short, I’m trying to James-Jordanize them before they . . . . Continue Reading »

Conversation or Monologue?

Sola scriptura is not a piece of epistemology. It is not a modernist quest for certainty and unquestionable foundations. It doesn’t pretend to bypass interpretation or the church or people with all their foibles and fallibility. It’s not a claim that Scripture is easy. It’s not a . . . . Continue Reading »

Naos

Here’s an intriguing etymology. The Hebrew word na’ah is used only three times in the Old Testament (Psalm 93:5; Song of Songs 1:10; Isaiah 52:7), meaning “to be beautiful.” It appears to come from navah , “to sit, to dwell.” It has the sense of “sitting . . . . Continue Reading »

Eye v. Expert Witness

Expounding on the differences between explanation and narration, Craig Hovey ( To Share in the Body: A Theology of Martyrdom for Today’s Church ) connects them to two forms of witness: “If the eyewitness knows about the particular case and the character witness knows about the person, . . . . Continue Reading »