Slogans have always occupied our public attention, and the ways that an enemy redefines a slogan can be as important as the phrase’s original connotation.  We can learn a fair…

1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15) and Psalm 138  • Genesis 3:8-15 and Psalm 130  • 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1  • Mark 3:20-35 1 Samuel 8 is one of those passages (there are several) that brings to my attention, every time…

1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20) and Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18  • Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and Psalm 81:1-10  • 2 Corinthians 4:5-12  • Mark 2:23-3:6 The first thing that draws my attention in 1 Samuel 3 is the brief, passing comment that opens up…

Isaiah 6:1-8 and Psalm 29  • Romans 8:12-17  • John 3:1-17 I’ve been taught, in very clear terms, not to read Isaiah 6 as a passage about the Trinity. I’ve been taught, in very clear terms,…

Taken down to their etymological components, scriptures are any written texts and literature is any human craft involving letters, usually of some alphabet or another.  But etymological roots don’t go…

What is education for? The oldest grand library of which I have any knowledge is the tablet-collection of the Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal, and as far as I can tell, it’s…

 If you don’t spend much time around Biblical-studies people, the neologism “parallelomania” might be a new one on you, so let me explain: for different reasons, some writers in Biblical…

History as a practice examines the contingent.  Everything that leaves evidence of having-happened might have happened otherwise, and nothing that has come to be except that it displaced other things…

Some of us first encounter them as the wicked city that Jonah eventually visits. For others they’re one of the Asian empires that Herodotus surveys on his way to the…

In today’s Episode, a potential new direction is explored by the City of Man podcast, beginning with a look at polarization in contemporary America.

You have heard that it is said: love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  Translations might differ, but what follows comes across well in most translations: Jesus enjoins those hearing…

Theology and literature have always seemed a natural pair to me.  In fact, I’ve written a Master’s Thesis examining Ezekiel with the help of William Blake; another digging into Christology…

The stereotype, whether we want to dismantle it or acknowledge it, holds that those who teach college English begin a quest in graduate school to be rid of teaching writing.…

Genesis–Bereshith in the Hebrew–opens with grand narratives of beginnings and generations, and the New Testament starts with four distinctive narrative accounts of Jesus, the anointed one.  For traditions that consider…

Hey Humanists! With Theology Beer Camp 2023 just around the corner (alas, I won’t be here, as I’m trying to be judicious taking days off during year one of my…