I watched Disney’s Old Yeller (1957) with my youngest daughter the other night, and was left marveling at the effortlessness of it all. Though it’s nearly 50 years old, it doesn’t seem dated, partly because it’s a frontier movie whose setting was long outdated even when it was made. The film is full of sentiment, but not a whiff of sentimentality. There are humorous touches – especially with the nearly-naked, always-muddy, youngest son, Arliss – and the humor is genuinely funny,... Read more
Smoke ascends from the abyss, and out of the smoke come creatures that look like locusts but sting like scorpions (Revelation 9). John gives an extended seven- or eight-part description (vv. 7-10): 1) Appearance as horses. 2) Crowns of gold on head. 3) Faces like faces of men. 4) Hair like women. 5) Teeth like lions. 6) Breastplates like breastplates of iron. 7) Wings that sound like chariots and horses. 8) Tails with scorpion stings. The form looks familiar. It’s... Read more
In one of the loveliest images in the Bible, David describes the just rulers as “the light of the morning when the sun rises / a morning without clouds / the tender grass out of the earth / through sunshine after rain” (2 Samuel 23:3). What might this mean? Rulers are elevated, like the sun in the heavens. Rulers shine light, illuminate what is dark. Here, the emphasis is on the sun’s power to give life. The sun can scorch... Read more
David v. Goliath is the ultimate one-on-one showdown. By the end of 2 Samuel, though, that single combat has expanded. Goliath has four relatives: Ishbi-benob (2 Samuel 21:16); Saph (v. 18); Lahmi (v. 19; cf. 1 Chronicles 20:5); and a giant with twenty-four fingers and toes (v. 20). Goliath is surrounded at the four points of the compass, by four cornerstones. With the four other giants, Goliath makes a five-man formation, the basic unit of ancient military organization, a pyramid.... Read more
David v. Goliath is the ultimate one-on-one showdown. By the end of 2 Samuel, though, that single combat has expanded. Goliath has four relatives: Ishbi-benob (2 Samuel 21:16); Saph (v. 18); Lahmi (v. 19; cf. 1 Chronicles 20:5); and a giant with twenty-four fingers and toes (v. 20). Goliath is surrounded at the four points of the compass, by four cornerstones. With the four other giants, Goliath makes a five-man formation, the basic unit of ancient military organization, a pyramid.... Read more
With all the pomp of an intrepid investigative reporter who has uncovered the next Watergate, Jerry Coyne announces that Catholics believe that God created the world: “The Church’s support of evolution, then, has been equivocal: while allowing that humans had evolved, it also affirmed human exceptionalism in the form of our unique soul. And the historical doctrine of Adam and Eve is profoundly unscientific, for we could not have descended from only two people, something that itself implies special creation. The Vatican,... Read more
More than one scholar has asked whether the new “apocalyptic” Paul is a Marcionite Paul. Douglas Moo has accused Douglas Campbell’s Deliverance of God of presenting a Paul who teaches an “incipient Marcionism.” Contributors to Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul raise similar concerns about Campbell more gently. David Hilborn asks whether Campbell’s emphasis on the “retrospective” direction of Paul’s thought “might underplay the quite specific and positive contribution made by the patriarchs, the law, and Israel itself to the divine... Read more
In the first phase of the sixth trumpet, a voice instructs the trumpet angel to release the four angels at the Euphrates (Revelation 9:14). When they do, a 200 million horse cavalry appears. It’s a huge army; what sort of army is it? The horsemen and horses are terrifying, fire-breathing creatures (v. 17). They kills people, lots of them (v. 18-19). Yet they are released, and appear to be led, by angels. What sort of army is this? The Lord’s army.... Read more
Douglas Campbell argues convincingly that pistis in Galatians 3 has a christological sense (Deliverance of God, 867-75). It seems an irrefutable point. In an extended footnote, Campbell deals with Moises Silva’s interpretation of the term in Galatians 3, which wobbles between christological interpretation and something else. Silva says that “the use of the verb elthein . . . suggests strongly that Paul must be referring to Christ,” but then adds that it is not “true in a literal, absolute sense”... Read more
When John first enters heaven, no altar is visible. He sees an altar for the first time when the fifth seal is broken, and at that point his attention is directed to the base of the altar, where the martyred saints have shed their blood (6:9). The next time we see the altar, it’s specifically identified as the “golden altar” of incense, and an angel is offering the prayers of the saints (8:3, 5). We have moved from the base... Read more
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