The epilogue to the book of Job (42:7-17) has often been denigrated as an anticlimactic ending that ruins a good story. Particularly controversial is the surprising divine verdict against the orthodox friends of Job for their failure to speak rightly about God, as Job has, even though Job has uttered vitriolic criticisms of God and has been reprimanded by YHWH. This essay offers a fresh re-consideration of this verdict within its literary context. It maintains that Job 42:7-10 is a coherent passage that offers an appropriate and theologically rich conclusion to the book.
The book of Job is often read as an abstract, intellectual debate over the problem of innocent suffering. Likewise, the book has been critiqued as one that does not recognize the importance of human relationships for recovery from overwhelming experiences of pain and loss due to its predominantly non-narrative genre and lack of restorative relationships throughout. Relegating the book's treatment of suffering to intellectual queries results in several significant losses, however, including the loss of an understanding of the way suffering affects persons in holistic ways and a loss of relevancy for audiences who may find intellectual debates interesting but far-removed from the "real" experience of suffering. Drawing upon Samuel E. Balentine's identification of Job as "the quintessential text in the biblical lexicon of trauma," this essay will explore how a trauma-informed reading opens up new perspectives on the book, restoring a level of humanity to Job that has been lost in certain circles.
This essay reads the book of Revelation as resistance literature, with a special focus on Roman authoritarian discourse. While such resistance can inspire many readers, authoritarian systems have a way of spoiling everything, compromising even resistance itself. Like other ancient Jewish literature, Revelation characterizes imperial discourse as "arrogant and blasphemous" (13:5). Yet in condemning Rome, its allies, and its enablers, Revelation presents its own authoritarian vision. Read in this way, the witness of this book remains essential, even unique, within the New Testament. It offers a model for redressing authoritarianism-and a case study in the dangers inherent in such resistance.
This essay delves into the identity, symbolism, and ethical implications of the four women in John's apocalypse, the book of Revelation. The juxtaposition of "evil" and good with the characters "Jezebel" in the letter to Thyatira, the harlot of Babylon, the Woman Clothed with the Sun, and the Bride of Christ/New Jerusalem communicate essential messages to contemporary readers. By studying the ancient biblical world, its texts, and its symbols, these women move from mere characters in a confusing story to teachers-through both good and bad examples-who speak truth to power in current affairs such as politics, economics, and religion.
The healing leaves of the Tree of Life in Rev 22:2 are rightly interpreted as a symbol of the hope and eternity established after the Kingdom of God defeats the forces of empire at the end of the book of Revelation. While most scholarship focuses on the interplay between this verse and Genesis 2-3, Ezekiel 47, and 1 Enoch 25, Roman imperial iconography of the stylized acanthus plant and its metonymic properties offers clues that help interpret the biblical healing leaves. This article reads Rev 22:2 in the context of the Roman imperial Caryatid Relief, featuring acanthus growing out of depictions of conquered nations, to provide richer meaning into interpretations of the healing leaves of Revelation's Tree of Life.
The book of Revelation includes seven "confirmation statements" (1:2, 9; 6:9; 12:11, 17; 14:12; 20:4). These seven passages assure the members of the seven churches in Roman Asia that their faithfulness will be rewarded and that they have secured their place in the New Jerusalem. These statements are examples of parallelism, a common feature in Hebrew poetry, when the first statement is echoed, completed, or contrasted by a second. When viewed collectively, these seven statements say something about God Almighty, Christ Jesus, the demands of Christian discipleship, and Christian community. As a result, these seven statements establish a sacred universe, which includes both heavenly and earthly realms.
Antisemitism, the hatred of Jews as a people, and anti-Judaism, the criticism and misrepresentation of the religion of the Jews, persist in literature and biblical studies today. Even progressive thinkers who otherwise champion human rights, including women's equality, abolition of slavery, and contemporary reform, sometimes slip into antisemitic and anti-Jewish tropes by relying on two types of thinking, dualism and scapegoating, which distance one's own group by defining another as "not us," in an effort to make Christianity look better by making Judaism look worse. Such an approach allows one to jettison objectionable parts of one's own tradition, rather than take responsibility for them, while undermining interfaith relations.
This essay argues that today's biblical scholarship often relies on methods conceived by eighteenth and nineteenth-century scholars whose anti-Jewish biases governed their observations regarding the dating of Deuteronomy. At the very least, this approach creates methodological problems that obscure other avenues of inquiry. At worst, it sustains the echoes of dangerous cultural and religious biases that can be annexed and revived for harmful purposes.
Christian interpretations of the New Testament have often severed Jesus from his Jewish context, leading to theological distortions with lasting consequences. This article reexamines key aspects of Jesus's identity as depicted in the New Testament-his messianic role, divinity, and incarnation-through the lens of Second Temple Judaism, highlighting these enduring influences on Christian theology. By situating the New Testament within its historical and religious milieu, this study challenges supersessionistic readings while demonstrating how greater attention to the Second Temple period can provide fresh insights for the interpretation of New Testament texts, adding nuance and depth to key theological themes found within the New Testament itself.
Recent definitions of antisemitism and related terms abound, but few address contemporary Christian antisemitism found in New Testament interpretation. Such interpretations continue in commentaries, study Bibles, websites, and sermons. After examining the causes of ten general antisemitic tropes in Christian exegesis, illustrated with selected examples, we suggest some tentative solutions for addressing the proliferation of such harmful and historically inaccurate interpretations.
Antisemitism is on the rise in the U.S. and around the world. Hatred of Jews is part of a trend of hatred against many minoritized groups-hate speech and violence against one group signals a rise in hatred toward other targeted groups. This essay promotes the Jewish teaching that all of us are responsible for bringing good into the world as we actively and relentlessly counter evil. The essay explores the rich heritage of ancient and modern Jewish teachings and traditions as a source of wisdom for how all people can work together to redeem our world.
Research shows that church attendance increasingly correlates with conservative political views and racial attitudes, particularly among White Christians. Despite increasing diversity in American society, Sunday services remain highly segregated such that worship practices, fellowship networks, and shared religious beliefs often reinforce, rather than challenge, racial divisions. This article suggests ways in which churches can embody the prophetic call for justice by moving beyond performative inclusion to sustained efforts that dismantle racism. In doing so, clergy, staff, and lay leaders must avoid merely symbolic allyship and enact substantive actions, even in the face of tensions and disagreements among their own members.
Recovering a sense of church that is fully at home with being God's creature is vital for faithful Christian existence. Theological attention to the biblical wisdom books can help in three ways: redirecting our attention to God's relation to us as Creator, modeling an approach to learning from others, and better reflecting the texture of ordinary ecclesial existence.
The Matthew 25 Initiative adopted by the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been a well-intentioned attempt to revitalize the church in the midst of declining membership and influence. This essay suggests that the urgent invitation of Mathew 25 to stand against racism, systemic poverty, patriarchy, homophobia, and consumerism is a worthy goal, but the church has domesticated this text by turning it into a program for institutional and congregational renewal, when it needs to radically challenge institutional priorities, expose insecurities, and move toward the Spirit's call to follow the risen Christ.
Christians trust that the church is present in every age not because its social forms are right, but because God is faithful. That confidence leads us to think theologically about changing patterns of church life. Theological reflection on the church needs to take sociological accounts seriously without reducing itself to them. The best accounts of changing patterns of church life today see declining rates of affiliation not as secularization, but as individualization. Individualization fits closely with an ecclesiology centered on mysticism, as Ernst Troeltsch saw. But Troeltsch's mysticism assumes the individualized individual of this age as natural, even ontological. Michel de Certeau's understanding of mysticism, on the other hand, stresses the contingency and instability of the subject and contains more potential for critique of this present moment. De Certeau describes the ways changing social realities press us to experience the gap between the world and our concepts of the world. Mystical speech flows from that gap as a kind of yearning. In that yearning, God renews the church.
This article investigates the depictions of feminized AI in two science-fiction films, Samantha from Her (2013) and Ava from Ex Machina (2014), and their similarities to the narrative story of Eve in Genesis 1-3. It finds that Samantha, Ava, and Eve, as “empathy machines,” have been subjected to oppressive patriarchal expectations placed on “feminized” roles, emotions, and abilities. However, through feminist criticism and reinterpretation, the study concludes that it is through the development of these traits that both humans and AI have the potential to achieve self-liberation and develop fully into self-actualization.
The phrase, “political theology,” has been understood in at least three ways: to describe the political implications of various theologies, to describe a theology of politics, and to describe the theological language that funds modern secular political systems. This paper explores the way generative artificial intelligence intersects with each of those understandings, especially noting the impact of AI on actual physical and corporate bodies. It argues for closer attention to the moral concerns that are raised within each understanding and advocates for design justice as a way to push the development of AI towards supporting systems that promote the flourishing of individual and corporate bodies.
This article is a thought experiment that asks, given the requisite circumstances, whether Paul the Apostle’s gospel could have any bearing on artificial intelligence. It finds that a reading of Paul’s gospel leaves the possibility open that sentient machines could be recipients of the salvation envisioned in the Apostle’s letters without the need for becoming human themselves.
