If one were to pick up a Jewish Old Testament and compare it to a Protestant Old Testament one would find there were some interesting differences in the Table of Context. The first seven books are the same in both, but after that things start to look a little different. Protestant Bibles include “Ruth” but Jewish Bibles go onto I and II Samuel. The reason for this is because there are different redactional values that have come to be employed... Read more

The Bible is a conversation. Some books seem to be responses to other books. Even within some books it seems that one section was written in response to another, or is offered as a balance or corrective. You can’t take the Proverbs seriously unless you also read the book of JobJoshua needs Judges and both need RuthMatthew without Mark Luke and John leaves an incomplete picture One interesting example of this kind of inter-canonical dialog is found through the book... Read more

Oracle, the word of יהוה With these words the books of Zechariah and Malachi both introduce prophetic verses directed toward the people of Israel with words of hope and promises of future glory, but there is something different in these prophecies then those who had prophesied before. These were prophets who were living in a post-exile Israel. They had seen the promises of return fulfilled but life wasn’t quite up to the standards promised. People wondered what the God they... Read more

Last night I went to the Roman Catholic Easter Vigil. It was amazing, as usual. The first part of the service is called the Service of the Light. It’s pretty awesome, the whole church is dark and slowly a light is brought it. Catechumens lit our candles as the pascal light was processed in. As part of the service the following prayer is prayed. It blew me away. For the last few months I have been working on a book... Read more

Our culture suffers from a epidemic of benighted bumblings when it comes to poetry in general and this condition is critically deficient in the area of Biblical poetry.  I have often argued that poetry is one of the most important ways to understand God in the Bible but is the least implemented in the composition of systematic theology or in the development of Christian doctrine. It’s deplorable how few people have any idea HOW to read the genre that makes... Read more

When someone says “” more often then not most people’s minds conjure up images of the end of the world. We think of images of desolate wastelands, and ravished terrain. We picture cities falling apart and mushroom clouds exploding across the surface of the planet. Apocalypse, for most people, is associated with the end of the world. The word apocalypse itself comes from the Greek word Ἀποκάλυψις, which means “revelation” or “unveiling”. It is about disclosure not destruction. The term... Read more

A great deal of the Hebrew Bible consists of Jewish reflections on a period of time where many of the citizens of Judah were deported by the Nebuchadnezzar II, king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar had attacked Jerusalem, put it under siege, and destroyed it. Not only did he burn the city, he also destroyed the Temple, which was the center of worship for the people of Judah. The destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the people from the... Read more

I awoke Sunday morning and got ready to go to church, where I teach the Junior High Sunday school class. We were going to talk about Blind Bartimaeus from Mark 10:46-52. And I was excited. The prayer of Bartimaeus forms the backbone of the central devotion of the eastern hesychastic piety, which seeks to teach the heart to pray not just the mouth or the mind. I was going to talk to my students about what it means to live... Read more

Its that time again. The winter is beginning to fade, flowers are blooming, and TV stations everywhere are being pumped with a 24 hour assault of political mud-slinging. Yes, you know what that means; the country is deep in the thralls of another election year. Airwaves have become battlefields. We are being constantly bombarded with sound bites, statistics and political branding. Candidates are closely monitoring where they stand on the political spectrum of “left” vs “right.” Each potential politician attempts... Read more

Lamentations is one of my favorite books in the Old Testament. It is a book of highly structured poetry that focuses on the wailing, mourning and, of course, lamentation or Jewish refugees. I love the way that the author is able to express deep, raw, human suffering and still maintain an aesthetic beauty. It was written as a reflection on the pain of being a displaced people, who are theologically frustrated, socially disrupted and left to drift without a clear... Read more