In his dense 1967 monograph on Homer and the Bible , Cyrus Gordon argued that the Iliad was written not for the sake of art only but to inspire the imagination of a Greek nation: “it does not divide Greek from Greek. The Trojans and their allies are treated with as much decorum and honor as the Achaeans and their allies. Moreover, in the Catalogue of Ships and in scattered descriptions of heroes (on both sides) and their genealogies, satisfaction... Read more
A reader sends this older analysis of zombies: www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2002/harper.htm . Read more
Pity the radical. For every radical, there’s always someone more radical still, someone who plays “more radical than thou” with greater skill. Recent New Testament scholarship has highlighted the “counter-imperial” import of the gospel. In some ways, this is a healthy recovery of the political resonances of the New Testament, but too often these interpretations ignore or neutralize contrary evidence (often using the tools of historical criticism). For Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza ( The Power of the Word: Scripture and the... Read more
The church is the incubator of the new creation. It is the womb of a new world, where the new creation gestates. But it can also be an incubator of monsters and witches. That’s the message of the letters to the churches. As Austin Farrer and others point out, the letters anticipate later portions of Revelation. First there are “beasts” in the church at Pergamum; later, there are even fiercer beasts outside attacking the church. First there’s a Jezebel in... Read more
James Jordan notes the connection between Jesus’ warning to the church at Laodicea and Yahweh’s promise to Noah after the flood. Jesus warns the church that is “neither hot nor cold” that they will be spewed from His mouth (Revelation 3:15-16). In Genesis 8, Yahweh promises not to curse the ground again, adding that while earth remains sowing and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease. These four pairs, as Jordan points out, are... Read more
More reflections on the Zombie craze over at http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/08/zombies-are-us . Read more
In his Hegels Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection , Dale Schlitt lays out Hegel’s effort to derive Trinitarian theology conceptually, rather than from revelation and redemptive history. In part, this is an argument about the structure of logic. For Hegel, the traiadic structure of the “inner Trinitarian God” or “inclusive Subject” was also the “structure of absolute Spirit, although not as yet its realization. The Subject needed an other to come to itself as Spirit. For Hegel, the final reconciliation... Read more
In his Hegels Trinitarian Claim: A Critical Reflection , Dale Schlitt lays out Hegel’s effort to derive Trinitarian theology conceptually, rather than from revelation and redemptive history. In part, this is an argument about the structure of logic. For Hegel, the traiadic structure of the “inner Trinitarian God” or “inclusive Subject” was also the “structure of absolute Spirit, although not as yet its realization. The Subject needed an other to come to itself as Spirit. For Hegel, the final reconciliation... Read more
Ephesians 5:18-21: Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Let us Pray. Open, O Lord, our ears and hearts, that... Read more
Exodus 20:4: You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. Many read the Second Commandment as a prohibition of representational art. It is not. It is not even a prohibition of liturgical art. Not long after He spoke this Word, Yahweh commanded Israel to make... Read more
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