Category: Scripture

How “Nous” Became a Trojan Horse For Secularism, and Why it is So Difficult to Translate

· Robin Phillips
Anyone who has been involved in Orthodoxy in America will likely have seen much discourse (often polemical in nature) about the “nous.” In fact, the nous plays a pivotal role in anti-western polemics since it has become a trope that “the West doesn’t have a concept of the nous.” Accordingly, the nous functions as a type of secret thing you can only…

Scripture: Myth or History?

· Fr. Stephen De Young
The scriptures call us, rather than attempting to reframe the scriptures and tradition of the church within the context of the things which we as modern people "now know," to reframe our own understanding of our lives, our personal histories, and the world as we encounter it in terms of the fullness of God's creation and the reality of Jesus Christ himself.

Ss. Paul and Constantine

· Fr. Stephen De Young
It is commonplace for many modern Christians, even Orthodox Christians, to consider St. Constantine a problematic figure.  Even the fact that he is considered a saint within the Orthodox Church is seen as difficult.  Obviously, the end of Christian persecution by the Roman Empire was a great benefit to the Church and to the Christians of the day.  But it is not…

David Bentley Hart’s The New Testament: A Review

· Fr. Stephen De Young
That David Bentley Hart was asked to produce a translation of the New Testament may at first seem counter-intuitive.  His field is philosophy and philosophical theology, not New Testament or Greek language (though he reads Greek).  Further, with the wide range of New Testament translations available to a general audience in English, not to mention the variety of Greek critical editions available…

Protestantism is Not United, Not Catholic, and Not a Church

· Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historical…

The Bible of the Church: Vignettes and Lessons from a Reformation Controversy

· Fr Esteban Julio Vázquez
Editor’s Note: This article is part of an October 2017 series of posts on the Reformation and Protestantism written by O&H authors and guest writers marking the 500th anniversary of the nailing of Martin Luther’s 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Articles are written by Orthodox Christians and discuss not just the Reformation as a historical…

Recovering a Full Theological Vision of the Ascension

· Hieromonk Herman (Majkrzak)
And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. —John 12:32 Ascension Day is possibly the most forgotten of the great feasts of the Lord. Why? In part because, unlike all the other feasts of the same rank, it can never fall on a Saturday or Sunday. Forty days after Pascha is always a Thursday,…

Grace and Wrath in the Orthodox Tradition

· Dylan Pahman
Eric Jobe’s recent series on justification (Part I, Part II, Part III) has spurred some discussion regarding the role of divine wrath in Orthodoxy. To simplify: Some readers seemed to believe that there was no place in Orthodoxy to speak of the wrath of God at all. Our salvation, to them, has nothing to do with deliverance from God’s wrath. Rather than…