Here’s a thesis to explore: The problems of feminist theology are intertwined with issues of sacramental theology and theological semiotics. If the SYMBOLISM of male and female is epiphenomenal, then feminist theology makes sense. If symbol and essence are co-determining, then feminist challenges to the Christian tradition are basically off-track. Read more
Eucharistic meditation for Third Sunday of Advent: Deuteronomy 12. During Israel’s wilderness wanderings, the tabernacle, Yahweh’s royal tent, was set in the middle of the Israelite camp, and was the place of worship and feasting. In the wilderness, an Israelite could not eat meat unless the animal had been slaughtered at the tabernacle, and its internal organs and fat had been offered on the altar as food for God. When Israel went into the land, this system ended. Israel could... Read more
I want particularly to address our out-of-town college students this morning, though what I have to say has some application to everyone. So, don’t tune out. This coming week, most of you students will be returning home for the holidays, and as you return home you will be faced with a number of temptations. I want to identify several of those and I exhort you in Christ’s name to resist them. First: For the past several months, you have been... Read more
Simon Gathercole’s Where Is Boasting has some stimulating insights into the argument of Romans 2, and some important objections to the NPP. The following notes are based on Gathercole: 1) It is clear that in Romans 2, Paul considers this Jew to be unrepentant and an apostate from Judaism. It has been common in recent NT scholarship to emphasize that the Jews had means for forgiveness and redemption. They weren’t condemned to death simply because they had broken the law,... Read more
Seen on a pair of socks at the recent Atlanta AAR/SBL convention: “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders” (“Here I stand. I can do no other.”) Read more
Graham Ward begins his book True Religion with a discussion of the use of the word “religion” in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , and then compares two film versions to explore how the religious theme of the play is handled. The two film versions are Franco Zeffirelli’s and Baz Luhrmann’s. Ward’s analysis of the latter as a fetishization of religious objects and symbols, and in terms of the film’s “irreality” (a variation on Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality) is particularly striking.... Read more
Doug Jones read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back” at our weekly disputatio today. What a wonderful story! It includes a burning bush and theophany; a baptismal vigil that ends with the main character, O.E. Parker, bearing a tattooed picture of Jesus on his back; a temple-cleansing, when O.E. gets into a brawl at his old bar, which also leads to him being an outcast from his old community of drinking buddies; a naming scene, when O.E. finally identifies himself by... Read more
Doug Jones read Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Parker’s Back” at our weekly disputatio today. What a wonderful story! It includes a burning bush and theophany; a baptismal vigil that ends with the main character, O.E. Parker, bearing a tattooed picture of Jesus on his back; a temple-cleansing, when O.E. gets into a brawl at his old bar, which also leads to him being an outcast from his old community of drinking buddies; a naming scene, when O.E. finally identifies himself by... Read more
I have long thought of the two parallel sections of Jonah as basically retellings of the same story, but now I’m thinking that they are consecutive thematically as well as chronologically. Here’s the typology: Jonah/Israel is called to witness to the nations, and refuses. Yahweh forces him into exile in the sea of nations, where he swallowed a great imperial sea monster. Then he’s vomited back into the land, bringing an end to exile. At that point, he’s supposed to... Read more
In the “Well, duh” category: After mentioning Warren Gage’s work on the parallels between Ruth and Tamar here earlier in the week, now I’ve read a student paper that helps to fill out that point. She points out that in both stories, men and specifically husbands die and that in both the outcome is the birth of a child to the widow. Also, it’s obvious that both are dealing with the institution of the levirate, and both are also reporting... Read more
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