From many Aboriginal elders, such as Tjangika Napaltjani, Bob Williams and Djiniyini Gondarra, to painters, such as Arthur Boyd, Pro Hart and John Forrester-Clack, from historians, such as Manning Clark, and poets, such as Maureen Watson, Francis Webb and Henry Lawson, to celebrated novelists, such as Joseph Furphy, Patrick White and Tim Winton,…[Read more]

The Christian faith is concerned not simply with what we might call “ideas” or “beliefs” but is also profoundly attentive to the question “How then shall we live?” This essay suggests ten particular habits and convictions that undergird, make judgements about, and give shape to Christian faith communities committed to pursuing such a question in…[Read more]

This essay attends to the relationship between our ethnic, social, and cultural identities, and the creation of the new communal identity embodied in the Christian community. Drawing upon six New Testament texts – Ephesians 2:11–22; Galatians 3:27–28; 1 Corinthians 7:17–24 and 10:17; 1 Peter 2:9–11; and Revelation 21:24–26 – it is argued that t…[Read more]

This essay attends to the relationship between our ethnic, social, and cultural identities, and the creation of the new communal identity embodied in the Christian community. Drawing upon six New Testament texts – Ephesians 2:11–22; Galatians 3:27–28; 1 Corinthians 7:17–24 and 10:17; 1 Peter 2:9–11; and Revelation 21:24–26 – it is argued that t…[Read more]

This essay takes three aims: (i) to map in brief the theo-historical genesis of the semper reformanda aphorism; (ii) to consider that idea vis-a-vis the Reformed habit of confessing Jesus Christ; and (iii) to suggest one area where the witness of many Reformed communities today might call for urgent
attention in the spirit of the semper.

The present study has been primarily provoked from the inadequacy of both late and present presuppositionalists to sufficiently answer or refute the more philosophical, transcendental challenges levelled against Van Til’s Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (hereafter TAG). Given this shortcoming—which, with it, comes an atm…[Read more]

This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close c…[Read more]

This article analyzes the nexus between collective violence, temple violation, and military glory in 1 and 2 Maccabees by comparing two festivals established in the context of revolt and guerilla warfare; namely, Hanukkah and Nicanor’s Day. It argues that the accounts of the origins of these two festivals in 1 and 2 Maccabees reinforce the close c…[Read more]

It is my modest goal in this essay to trace how Nock uses conversion to produce religion(s) and then to explore its similarities to and differences from an analogous construction of religion-through-conversion in late antiquity.

Biblical Aramaic accounts for a small fraction within the two-testament Christian Bible. Studying it would seem therefore to present a modest value for biblical studies, and Egyptian Aramaic, a nonbiblical counterpart from the same historical era, even more so. The present article argues, however, that comparing Egyptian Aramaic with biblical…[Read more]

Biblical Aramaic accounts for a small fraction within the two-testament Christian Bible. Studying it would seem therefore to present a modest value for biblical studies, and Egyptian Aramaic, a nonbiblical counterpart from the same historical era, even more so. The present article argues, however, that comparing Egyptian Aramaic with biblical…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

This is a particular work focusing on an aspect of the Catholic Church in Europe, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, concerning the rise of democracy during the so-called Modernist Crisis. I view the Modernist phenomenon as an historical lens through which to understand the politics, often characterized by artful and dishonest…[Read more]

As a new theory in the humanities and social studies, Queer Theory, as a broad theory encompassing any understanding that is anti-normativity and anti-fixed identity, is often applied to sexual matters. Whereas, others have discussed Queer Theory from the perspective of Identity Politics in sexual matters, I discuss Queer Theory from a…[Read more]

Psalms write and express revelation, relationship, and response on and through the body; corporeal vocabulary, awareness of embodiment and somatic metaphors abound. This rhetoric draws people in through reference to common experience and uses somatic language to express thoughts and emotions which often escape conceptualisation, such as confusion,…[Read more]