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During the first decades of the twenty-first century, the Buddha has become part of Western popular culture, on occasion little more than a commodity on the shelf in the modern supermarket of individual spiritualities – brand Buddha. He signifies happiness, inner peace, tranquility, serenity, wellness, simplicity, stillness, and mindfulness. He has significance, impact, and a […]
Read MoreMy sophomore year of college, I stumbled across an anarchist forum while browsing the internet. I decided to take a few minutes to investigate, reflexively adopting the outlook of an anthropologist: I’d see what these political eccentrics had to say, learn about their subculture, and move along. So, you can imagine my shock when I […]
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The question of the meaning of life is a modern question. This claim may elicit surprise. After all, didn’t ancient and medieval people, especially religious people, believe that they had answers to the meaning of life? Didn’t the great religions provide rich and sufficient accounts of human purpose, of the goal of human existence? Wasn’t […]
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Most books about the Ten Commandments ask the question: what did they really mean? My book, The Ten Commandments: Monuments of Memory, Belief, and Interpretation, asks instead how they mean. In other words, what made them meaningful? How were they meaningful enough for the ancient Israelites to repeat the text in two places, Exodus 20 […]
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Contemporary research into the biblical writings has been shaped by a number of influences and interpretive methods over the past century. But one of the most significant developments has been the birth of archaeological research and its impact on how we read the Bible. Indeed, what separates our scholarship from those who came before is […]
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Inquirers about God eventually confront an issue about evidence for God: Is there any salient evidence available to them for God’s reality and goodness? If so, where is it to be found, and how is it to be found? Such questions deserve our careful attention, because their answers have significant consequences for human lives, individually […]
Read MoreThe book of Proverbs is not the most widely read of the biblical books, although individual proverbs are widely cited: eg “A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief” (10:1) or “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich” (10:4) and known to […]
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When we think of a prophet, we might well imagine a bearded and eccentric biblical seer delivering God’s judgment on his people. But the prophetic office did not end with the sealing of the biblical canon. Thomas Aquinas said that God would always raise up new prophets for the reform of the Church. Inspired by […]
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