I’ve been seeing references to Morna Hooker’s article “Adam in Romans 1” for years ( NTS 6, 297-306), but have just today read through it. It’s a very provocative piece of work, and deserves its wide citation. Hooker carefully catalogues the terminological parallels between Romans 1 and Genesis 1 (obvious references to creation in Rom 1; likeness and image in close conjunction; a list of animals that follows the order of creation in Gen 1) and also shows that the... Read more
Rereading the chapter on Derrida in Brian Ingraffia’s Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology (Cambridge, 1995), I realize just how much my understanding of Derrida was formed by reading this book several years ago. Ingraffia highlights (as I have done in a previous post, erroneously thinking I had come up with the insight myself) the fact that Derrida renounces eschatology, and therefore offers infinite deferral without closure. Ingraffia also concisely summarizes the argument of Of Grammatology to the effect that the... Read more
In his book on the “moral vision of the NT,” Richard Hays refers to homosexual acts as an “antisacrament” of rebellion against God, a visible (even ritual?) manifestation of a rejection of the Creator and His created order. This is a very profound way to describe the character of the gay rights movement. It particularly helps to explain the rabid response to anyone who challenges the gay rights movement. Opponents are not just reasonable people who disagree on a moral... Read more
Sermon notes for October 26: The Father’s Gifts to His Children, Luke 11:1-54 INTRODUCTION On His journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus meets the same range of responses that He met in Galilee. He is accused of being in league with the devil (v. 15) and criticized by the Pharisees (vv. 37-41), but He is also praised by the crowd (vv. 27-28). As in Galilee, so on the road, the main response is rejection. Since “this generation” rejects Jesus (vv. 29-30), the... Read more
The remarkable Jody Bottum ?Epoet, poetry editor for First Things , and Books and Culture editor for The Weekly Standard ?Ehas made bioethics his bailiwick, having published several essays in The Weekly Standard in the past few years. He writes the lead editorial on the subject in the current issue, and again shows how much is being without the scrutiny of the press or public. It’s an alarming trend and, as he said, we are the frogs in the pot... Read more
In her monograph on magic and the demonic in Luke-Acts (entitled The Demise of the Devil ), Susan Garrett offers some illuminating comments on Jesus’ declaration that He watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning (Luke 10:17-20): 1) She argues persuasively that Jesus is speaking prophetically of a future fall of Satan. She appeals to the parallel between Jesus’ “I was watching” and the similar phrase that Daniel uses to introduce his prophetic visions (cf. Dan. 7:2, 4, 6, 7,... Read more
The same Weekly Standard review mentioned in a previous post gives a brief summary of the editorial introduction to Volume 21 of the Works of Jonathan Edwards , written by Sang Hyun Lee: “Lee claims that Edwards marks a stunning departure from the Western theological tradition by the way he repudiated deism. Eighteenth-century deists depicted a watchmaker god who observes from a distance his self-sustaining world, and Western theology in a similar manner has represented God as ‘externally’ but not... Read more
Two very different evaluations of the Enlightenment appear in recent books. First from Robert Darnton, historian of the French Enlightenment, who, according to the reviewer in the October 6 TNR , devotes the first and most substantative essay in his recent book George Washington’s False Teeth to defending the Enlightenment. The reviewer’s summary: “Enlightenment was a cause that galvanized intellectuals committed to tolerance, skepticism, individuals, civil liberty, and cosmopolitanism, and that its values have proved to be the most potent... Read more
There’s a breakdown in the traditional typology that links “promised land” with “heaven.” Though the promised land is eschatologically a new heavens and new earth, the typology is more exactly fulfilled in the church’s fulfillment of the great commission on earth. After all, we don’t embark on a “conquest” of heaven ?Eso it can’t be the fulfillment of Canaan. We embark on a conquest of earth, which will eventually be united with heaven at the coming of the Greater Joshua... Read more
Moses is the matchmaker who brings the bride to a trysting place with her lover, Yahweh. He is the “friend of the bridegroom” who, like John the Baptist, prepares the bride for her husband. As such, Moses and John are models for all Christian ministry, which is also all about protecting the virgin bride, training and perfecting her, for the consummation of her wedding. Ultimately, this is a work of the Spirit, the divine matchmaker, but the Spirit works through... Read more
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