Why so much attention to the pillars of Solomon’s temple in 2 Kings 25? It is likely that these were the last major items left. Ahaz had already dismantled the bronze sea and the water chariots. King after king plundered the temple for bribe money. When Nebuchadnezzar came, not much was left. Perhaps even the ark was among the “gold” items removed earlier. The sequence of removal is probably significant. First, Ahaz interrupted the flow of water going out of... Read more
Fred Anderson and Andrew Clayton suggest a revisionist, imperial reading of American history: “At least from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present, American wars have either expressed a certain kind of imperial ambition or have resulted directly from successes in previous imperial conflicts. ‘Imperialism’ is, of course, a loaded term, full of negative connotations. We suggest, however, that it can most productively be understood in the sense of the proressive extension of a polity’s, or a people’s... Read more
Harnack described Marcion’s main impulses as follows: “The innovations of Marcion are unmistakable. The way in which he attempted to sever Christianity from the Old Testament was a bold stroke which demanded the sacrifice of the dearest possession of Christianity as a religion, viz., the belief that the God of creation is also the God of redemption. And yet this innovation was partly caused by a religious conviction, the origin of which must be sought not in heathenism, but on... Read more
Peter Jones writes, “In spite of Marcion’s massive rejection of early Christian orthodoxy, and his denunciation and excommunication by the second century Church, the great nineteenth century Liberal historian and theologian, Adolf von Harnack, called Marcion ‘the first Protestant.’ For Harnack, ‘Protestant’ meant ‘liberal.’ The similarly sympathetic judgment by Helmut Koester, a Bultmannian New Testament scholar, lately at Harvard, calls Marcion ‘a textual critic, philologian and reformer.’ When these church fathers are dismissed by contemporary liberal scholars as ‘myopic heresy... Read more
Georg Simmel wrote, “Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money. All things lie on the same level and differ from one another only in the size of the area which they cover.” Measuring value in monetary terms is deeply erroneous. It is certainly... Read more
In his recent commentary on Leviticus (Baker), Allen Ross suggests that genital discharges were defiling because “The nature of God is so different from our human condition that the two conflict. The law made it clear that bodily functions prevent people from entering the presence of God – here or in the world to come.” Also, normal discharges made a person unclean because “these things were all earthly and physical, and so they could never be included in the category... Read more
The woman of Shunem sets Elisha up with a table, a chair, a menorah – and a bed. The first three are clearly linked with temple furniture, but a bed? I submit that the bed is an altar, and hence the boy laid on the bed and revived is a new Isaac, Elisha a new Abraham who is father of the remnant, the woman of Shunem a new Sarah. Dittos for Elijah, who also lays a dead boy on the... Read more
Israel’s calling was to be the focal point of Yahweh’s battle against sin. This is evident from the context of Abraham’s call in Gen. 12. Yahweh promised earlier He would no longer flood the earth. After Babel the nations have been scattered and He will no longer deal with them directly. Yet, He did not resign himself to a world under the dominion of sin. Instead, He pursued His holy war against sin within the house of Abraham. This paradigm... Read more
Israel’s calling was to be the focal point of Yahweh’s battle against sin. This is evident from the context of Abraham’s call in Gen. 12. Yahweh promised earlier He would no longer flood the earth. After Babel the nations have been scattered and He will no longer deal with them directly. Yet, He did not resign himself to a world under the dominion of sin. Instead, He pursued His holy war against sin within the house of Abraham. This paradigm... Read more
As posed by what Jurgen Moltmann has called “protest atheism,” the problem of evil is usually framed as a contradiction within theism, particularly biblical theism. Evil exists: God is either good but impotent to stop evil, or He is omnipotent but malign, such that evil expresses some aspect of his character. Since Augustine’s polemics against the Manichees, this dilemma has been answered by emphasizing the negativity of evil. Evil has, in John Milbank’s words, no “ontological purchase,” but is instead... Read more
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