Essays on Bible

Throughout the bible mercy is displayed by God in numerous situations, even though we are not deserving of it. He took our burdens so that we could be free. Mercy is one of the central themes in the Bible and helps us to better connect...

The Divine Comedy: Inferno’s “Canto XV” begins with the reader joining Dante pilgrim and Virgil as they exit the wood of the suicides on their way to the third ring of the seventh circle of hell: the burning sands. This is where the blasphemers, sodomites,...

The miracle stories narrated by each of the four evangelists arguably form one of the most famed aspects of the story of the life of Jesus Christ, and it is clear that for the writers of the Gospels, as well as for the earliest Christians,...

Erich Auerbach describes a model for a hero from the Hebrew bible that he believes is nearly all inclusive. Joseph and the story of his journey through slavery and imprisonment up to royalty exemplifies the journey from the deepest humiliation to exaltation, aided by God’s...

In the first 18 lines of John, the story of Jesus is introduced with a jarringly brief and emphatic summary of history from the beginning of time to the birth of Christ. This passage formalizes the concept, suggested more subtly in Genesis, that language precedes...

“Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” Genesis reads (Gen...

Misogyny tends to devastate the authority of woman by depriving her of equal treatment to her male counterpart. There are two conversations that seem to circle around ancient texts and misogyny. Did religious texts directly affect the perceptions of society on women or did the...

“It is done! I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 21:6 From the opening words of the Bible (Revised Standard Version) to its closing ‘Amen,’ the power of language is highlighted as a central aspect...

The central, overarching story in Genesis is the account of the fathers of Israel, which contains the individual stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and finally Joseph. Although each account is compiled together, there is a fundamental shift in the authors’ presentation of God once the...

In the book of Genesis, God creates humans to serve as caretakers for the world that he created. He creates a garden to nourish them and to provide a location in which he can speak with the pair. Even after Adam and Eve are expelled...

Both Hesiod’s epic poem Theogony and the early chapters of Genesis from the Hebrew Bible offer unique creation stories for their respective religions. Though these two religions are vastly different, one being monotheistic and the other polytheistic, their tales of origin each portray gods (or...

The book of Job in the Holy Bible is the story of a righteous man, living in the land of Uz, whose faith is tested by God and Satan. The author of the text is unknown, though due to the changing voice within the narrative...

In Genesis, recognition is consistently paired with deception in the sense that the former almost always is a cause of the latter. This creates several type scenes that are most notable past the births of Jacob and Esau. In fact, deception appears to be an...

The presentation of the way in which Jewish and non-Jewish elements inter-relate within the Gospel of Matthew is a fundamentally significant area of study if the Biblical scholar is to successfully appreciate the aims and values of the Evangelist and gain an understanding of the...

Religious Duties of Proverbs 3:1-12 According to some, King Solomon was inspired by the Holy Ghost to write the poetic Book of Proverbs. All of Solomon’s writings have literary significance, and the third chapter of Proverbs is outstanding not only in theme but in its...

Introduction: The Multi-Faceted Appeal of the Book of Esther The book of Esther is one of the greatest pieces of literature in the Hebrew Bible. Its narrative is intricate, inventive, and colored with complex characters. It is the basis for the celebration of Purim and...

Who is More Sexist: Mankind or God? All members of society, religious or not, at some point have heard the legendary tale of Adam and Eve. The Bible story has inspired countless retellings of mankind’s creation, each with their own unique interpretations and expansions. The...

There are several levels in literary criticism. The first – and most superficial – level examines the work in search of sounds and images that might contribute to the overall meaning of the piece. This type of analysis is an excellent starting point, but if...

The characters of Agave and Eve, while subordinate to their male counterparts, Pentheus and Adam, play extremely important roles within The Bacchae and Genesis, respectively. Their characters are portrayals of typical women who, because of encounters with the divine, are able to break away (albeit...

The Bible builds its literary foundations upon the themes of Knowledge and Sin, two topoi that are reflected again and again in various parables, allegories, and tales found within this sacred text. Genesis 9:20-27 exemplifies the synthesis of these ideas, the relatively short tale of...

American culture has a notoriously rapid pace and obvious state of exhaustion which accompanies an overexertion of the mind, body, and spirit of a person. In this hustle and bustle it becomes easy to lose sight of the ideals set for happiness and overall lifestyle....

For many stories, the meaning changes drastically when read through different lenses. Looking at the context in which Thucydides writes might lead one to see it as a warning to the Athenians not to repeat the mistakes of the past, while looking at the text...

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The following paper received first place at the 2005 Concordia University President’s Showcase, Tier Two, and was presented at the Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research at the University of California, Riverside. Jesus in Context: The Influence of the Galilee Region on the...

Exodus 16 and Numbers 11 both recount the story of the manna and quails. Though these two chapters concern the same story, they offer different details and variable facts. The two stories differ especially in their characterization of the Hebrew people, God, and the relationships...

Although Joseph is known for his coat of many colors, the true plurality of Joseph arises not from the appearance of his clothing, but from the multiplicity of roles that he assumes over the course of the biblical narrative. Joseph is both favored and hated,...

The story of the flood in Genesis 6-9 in the Old Testament is familiar to the readers of the Bible, but the record of such a flood first appears much earlier in ca. 2,500 B.C. on the eleventh tablet of the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh....

While the author(s) of the Epistles of the New Testament are disputed, a more compelling interest in the Biblical books is their contrasting view of a woman’s role in society. In fact, works completed by Paul polarize Christian denominations to this day, due to disputes...

With the development of psychoanalysis as a form of literary criticism, there have been many controversial new interpretations of religious texts, including the Bible. One such interpretation is that the Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are dominated by the desire for the sons to...

Peter’s denial of Jesus is a story that occurs in all four gospels. Though the main events remain the same, each gospel writer endows the story with unique and often contrasting details that speak to each gospel’s focus and themes. Michael Coogan notes that an...

The God of the Old Testament is no less omnipotent today. By definition, the theoretical notion of an all-consuming being points to human limitation and protects the God from being touched by constantly varying human perception. The ultimate, embodying force of the universe exists in...