Beowulf revolves around three battles between the hero and threatening monsters—Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. The central focus of the first two fights is Heorot, the mead-hall of Hrothgar, king of Denmark. The mead-hall is the focus of a complex of imagery. As in the Odyssey and Macbeth, the festive life of the mead-hall is a microcosm of an ideal society. The hall is the hub of a gift economy. Once Heorot is built: “Nor did he renege, but... Read more
Beowulf revolves around three battles between the hero and threatening monsters—Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. The central focus of the first two fights is Heorot, the mead-hall of Hrothgar, king of Denmark. The mead-hall is the focus of a complex of imagery. As in the Odyssey and Macbeth, the festive life of the mead-hall is a microcosm of an ideal society. The hall is the hub of a gift economy. Once Heorot is built: “Nor did he renege, but... Read more
All the rites of Israel’s sacrificial system move from outside in. When a priest offers a purification offering for himself or for all the people, he slaughters the animal in the courtyard before bringing its blood into the holy place (Leviticus 4). When the high priest performs the rites of the Day of Atonement, he again moves from the outer court on the east toward the inner sanctuaries in the west (Leviticus 16). The descriptions of the sanctuaries, though, move... Read more
In Matthew 4, the devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and demands that he throw himself down, trusting His Father to send angels to keep Him from dashing His foot against a stone. Jesus replies by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” It’s an odd temptation, often taken as a temptation to gain attention and notoriety with a spectacular miracle at the center of Jerusalem. If Jesus jumped from... Read more
In an extended review of my Delivered from the Elements of the World, Brad Littlejohn argues that I’m addicted to novelty. I write theology in which, so it seems to Brad, “newness is prized above all.” I am a Protestant primitivist yet at the same time a Protestant futurist, “somehow simultaneously putting us back in touch the original primitive Christianity even while rocketing us into the Christian future.” If I’m not actually guilty of these charges, Brad worries that I... Read more
In his commentary on Hebrews, William Lane disputes the common view that Hebrews 1:6 refers to the incarnation when it says that God brought the “firstborn into the world.” The Greek word behind “world” is oikoumene, which, Lane argues, typically refers to “habitable land, in contrast to the arid, uninhabitable desert” (27). In Hebrews 1:6, though, the reference is to the exaltation of the Son, and thus oikoumene “concerns neither the incarnation nor the parousia but the entrance of Christ... Read more
“Arise, Yahweh, to Your resting place, you and the ark of your strength” (Psalm 132:8). The Psalm describes the ascent of Yahweh…s ark-throne into Jerusalem as an entry into rest. Yahweh has conquered, Yahweh has taken His throne, Yahweh enters Sabbath. Unsurprisingly, 1 Chronicles 15, which recounts the ascent of the ark, is patterned by Sabbatical sevens. The list of Levitical singers and musicians is organized as follows: 1) Three chief Levites: Heman, Asaph, Ethan, 15:17 2) Fourteen of “second... Read more
As David brings the ark into Jerusalem, he assembles Levites and priests to carry it to its place, as Torah requires. 1 Chronicles 15:5-11 enumerates Levites in each of six subtribes: 1. Koathites, 120 2. Merarites, 220 3. Gershomites, 130 4. Sons of Elizaphan, 200 5. Sons of Hebron, 80 6. Sons of Uzziel, 112 Six subtribes may be significant, six being the number of a man, the number of Adam, created on the sixth day. Adding the numbers is... Read more
The Reformers read Revelation as a prophetic outline of history, and so identified the beast and harlot with the Catholic church of their time. In response, Catholics developed “preterist” and “futurist” readings of the book, which viewed the Apocalypse as a prophecy of fulfilled events of the distant past, of the history of the church prior to Constantine, or events that will be fulfilled only at the end of all things. According to Craig Koester (Revelation, 56-57), “Francisco Ribera (d.... Read more
Each day the sun rises and sets. Each year, the sun does the same, ascending during the spring to its zenith in the summer solstice and then descending again to its nadir in the winter solstice. As Jean Hani points out (Symbolism of the Christian Temple, 73-4), the church worked this day-year analogy into its calendar: “The temporal aspect of the Revelation of Christ, the Sun of Justice, corresponds to these two solstices, the ‘turning points’ of the sun, the... Read more
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