Recent Posts

Risks in Reading for the Art of Biblical Narrative

Graham has recently written a couple of posts (here and here) on Alter's seminal work, "The Art of Biblical Narrative". The "New Literary Criticism" movement is not new any more...

Daniel 7: The Kingdom will be Given to the Saints

Despite the difficult details and apocalyptic flavour of Daniel, the overarching theme is not too complicated and I think correctly summarised as: “God is sovereign. He overrules and eventually will...

Irony Abounding to the Chief of Persia

I few weeks back I posted in the wake of completing Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative, noting his method and drawing out some theological conclusions. The experience implicit throughout...

Music with Meaning

When do we utter words least true about our convictions, beliefs and attitudes if not during song? Often our words declared to melody lack scrutiny and we are not held...

Technology: Saviour or Servant

Since first seeing the film in 2009 and subsequently as well as hurriedly reading the graphic novel, I have found The Watchmen fascinating. Few stories, in my opinion, so cleverly...

More from Robert Alter: Theological Observations

I recently posted some gleanings from The Art of Biblical narrative by Robert Alter, highlighting his convincing exhibition of a literary approach to Old Testament narratives and a selection of...

Rediscovering the Art of Biblical Narrative

“Religious tradition has by and large encouraged us to take the Bible seriously rather than enjoy it, but the paradoxical truth of the matter may well be that by learning...

The Silence of God

Introductory Note: This is longer than I intend blog posts to be. The purpose of this article is to respond to a question from one of my Bible Education students...

Redeeming Origen: The Godly Heretic

If you know anything about Origen, then chances are that it’s one of two things: he emasculated himself in striving for sexual purity, and his theology undergirds Rob Bell’s universalistic...