Features

The Favored One
How Mary became the Mother of God By Ronald F. Hock, David R. Cartlidge

Five million Christian pilgrims travel each year to the grotto of Lourdes in southwestern France, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to a peasant girl in 1858. The map of Rome is spotted with churches dedicated to the Queen of Heaven and Mother of God. The liturgical calendars of the Catholic […]

Genesis as Rashomon
The creation as told by God and man By Pamela Tamarkin Reis

Ever since Rashomon took the grand prize at the Venice Film Festival 50 years ago, the movie by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa has been the subject of extensive critical analysis. Based loosely on two early-20th-century short stories, one of which was itself a retelling of several tenth-century Japanese narratives, the film relates the […]

Why Deborah’s Different

Some see her as an ancient Israelite Joan of Arc, a devout maid who led her people to victory against a hated national foe.1 Others picture her as the prototype of the modern militant feminist, who challenged the forces of an oppressive patriarchy as she delivered Israel from the Canaanites.2 Most readers simply admire […]

It’s Elementary
Psalms 9 and 10 and the order of the alphabet By John Strugnell, Hanan Eshel

Psalms 9 and 10 have always been somewhat of a puzzle. The first question is whether they are actually two parts of one long psalm or whether they are two separate psalms. What suggests that they were originally really one piece is that together they form an acrostic poem built with the Hebrew alphabet […]

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Of Doubt, Gadflies and Minimalists
The minimalists are right to question what we know anout the time when the Bible was composed, but they are wrong in their conclusions. By Ronald S. Hendel
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