010 Karl Marx, when he was living in Highgate, London, was once asked to address a group of theologians. On his arrival, the meeting place was full of tobacco smoke, and Marx remarked, “Theologians always cloud the issues.” When I remind...

029 Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath. … Thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them …” (Exodus 20:4, 5). The Second Commandment’s...

022023 022 In an article I recently wrote in Bible Reviewa on the problems of Bible translating, I distinguished two styles of translation:...

022 The extraordinary achievement of the Hebrew Bible as history is rarely remarked on, but it is worth considering. For the Hebrew Bible contains the oldest surviving historical work as such and perhaps the earliest history ever written. We tend...

022023 022 A century is a wholly arbitrary block of time. History surely does not proceed by 100-year chunks. And to mark the beginning and...