2014-02-06T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 6, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Drawing on the work of Matthias Klinghardt, Claudio Carvalhaes (Eucharist and Globalization, 37-8) claims that in the Greco-Roman world the term koinonia had the primary meaning of “meal community.” He adds, “Within the meal communities the values of society were upheld, developed and expanded (e.g., mutuality, joy, modest, order, peace, etc.) which were the values of charis. The banquets were schools that spread social values, teaching the individual how to behave in society and be an active citizen of the polis.... Read more

2014-02-06T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 6, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Some years ago, Richard Bauckham wrote superb book on Revelation, The Climax of Prophecy. It contained nine references to John’s gospel. A recent collection of papers in honor of the dean of Johannine studies, Raymond Brown, contained only a handful of references to Revelation, all in a single footnote. John Ashton has written that we cannot accept the traditional attribution to John the Apostle because “in language, form, style, and content” John and Revelation are “utterly different.” But Ashton left the... Read more

2014-02-06T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 6, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

In an essay in Temple in Antiquity, John Lundquist outlines some features of the common temple ideology of the Ancient Near East. Among these, he argues, is the tree of life, “an integral part of the ‘primordial landscape’” that temples reproduced. From this, it was a natural conclusion to think of the priest or the as a gardener, tending the sacred tree. Lundquist quotes from Thorkild Jacobsen: “This mythical conception receives its symbolical expression in the cult by means of a special... Read more

2014-02-06T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 6, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Why Sochi for the Olympics. Christian Caryl explains that it’s Putin’s declaration of victory over Chechen rebels, the subjugation of the northern Caucasus: “Russia launched its Olympic bid in 2006, a moment when Putin was basking in his hard-won status as the leader who had finally vanquished the long-running rebellion in Chechnya. Putin did not choose Sochi by chance. He believed that presiding over an Olympic miracle in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, not far from places that had been... Read more

2014-02-06T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 6, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Adopting a Hebraic literary technique, Revelation 1:9-20 repeats key words. “Voice” (phone) is used four times. John hears a voice (v. 10), turns to see it (v. 12), and the central feature of the glorified being he sees is a “voice” like the “voice” of many waters (v. 15), the voice of Jesus resounding like the voice of God, anticipating the oceanic voice of the saints (19:6). The verb “write” (grapho) frames the entire scene (vv. 11, 19), indicating that... Read more

2014-02-05T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 5, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Mary Douglas (Leviticus as Literature) argued that the book of Leviticus is constructed as a texual tour of the tabernacle. Moshe Kline agrees:  “This structure can be interpreted as an analogical representation of the Tabernacle with chapter 19 parallel to the Ark of the Covenant, the inner array the Holy of Holies, the middle array the Holy Place, and the outer array the courtyard. The experience of reading Leviticus, according to this analogy, places the reader in a position analogous to... Read more

2014-02-05T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 5, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Michael Morales (The Tabernacle Pre-Figured, 277) argues that “the narrative arc from Gen 1-3 to Exod 40 may be traced as the expulsion from the divine presence to the gained re-entry into the divine presence via the tabernacle cultus, from the profound descent of Adam to the dramatic ‘ascent’ of the high priest into the holy of holies.” Earlier, he gave a fuller account of the same tale: After Adam, Cain and then the whole human race are banished more... Read more

2014-02-05T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 5, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Trusting in the Bible’s depictions of the unified church, and hopeful in Christ’s own prayer for the unity of His disciples, Nevin insisted (Catholic Unity) that the fragmentation of the church could not possibly be permanent: “Can any one suppose, that the order of things which now prevails in the Christian world, in the view before us, is destined to be perpetual and final? Does it not lie in the very conception of the Church, that these divisions should pass... Read more

2014-02-05T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 5, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

Nevin (Catholic Unity) knows the arguments for denominationalism: “We frequently hear apologies made for the existence of sects in the Church. They are said to be necessary. The freedom and purity of the Church, we are told, can be maintained only in this way. They provoke each other to zeal and good works. Without them, the Church would stagnate and grow corrupt. They are but different divisions of the same grand army, furnished for battle variously according to their several... Read more

2014-02-05T00:00:00+06:00

Last updated on: February 5, 2014 at 12:00 am   By

In his 1844 sermon on Catholic unity, John Williamson Nevin steered carefully around the paradox of a unified church divided by denominations. On the one hand, he insisted that the church’s unity must take outward, visible, social form. As a soul without a body is disfigured, so inward unity without outward is abnormal. At the same time, he equally insisted that a divided church remained a church. He introduced the factor of time to navigate the issue: “It is seldom that... Read more

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