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Biblical Horizons

OPEN BOOK: Views and Reviews

Isaac E. Mozeson, The Word: The Dictionary that Reveals the Hebrew Sources of English (Northvale, NJ: Jacob Aaronson Inc., 1995), 310 pp. Reviewed by James B. Jordan. Once there was only one language in the world, the language God spoke to Adam. At the Tower of Babel, there came to…

by James B. JordanJune 28, 1996
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Esther

Esther: Historical & Chronological Comments (IV)

2. The Setting of the Book of Esther A. Xerxes (continued from previous issue) Ezra 6:14 says that the Jews finished building "according to the command of the God of Israel and the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia." The problem with this verse is that…

by James B. JordanJune 28, 1996
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Acts

Jesus and Amalek

This essay goes with our previous study of the Amalek pattern back in Biblical Horizons No. 2. Since many do not have this essay, entitled "The Battle of Gog and Magog," let me cite the relevant paragraphs: Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh…

by James B. JordanJune 28, 1996
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Proverbs

The Strange Woman

Proverbs 7:6-23 is one of several passages early in the Proverbs in which Solomon warns his son about the wiles and dangers of the "strange woman." It is certainly quite proper to take these as straightforward warnings against sexual sins, and these are certainly warnings that need to be impressed…

by Peter LeithartJune 27, 1996
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Biblical Studies

Some Observations

1. In Luke 4:20 we read that after Jesus finished reading from Isaiah, "the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him." This is usually taken in a psychological sense: They were amazed at Jesus somehow. I suggest that, as always, a merely psychological reading is a modern…

by James B. JordanMay 28, 1996
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Esther

Esther: Historical & Chronological Comments (III)

2. The Setting of the Book of Esther Up to now we have assumed what we must prove, that the king in Esther is Darius the Great. While Biblical chronologists have usually taken this position, commentators on the book of Esther have often taken others as the king. One view,…

by James B. JordanMay 28, 1996

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Fig Trees and Temples

Luke 13 begins with a discussion of guilt and disasters. Pilate had slaughtered Galileans in the temple, mingling their blood with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus denies that the Galileans who perished were greater sinners than others. Rather, “unless you repent, you shall also likewise perish.” NT Wright takes…

February 29, 2016
Atonement

Zoom Lens Atonement Theory

Many years ago, I critiqued traditional sacramental theology for overusing the zoom lens. Many debates and many theological formulations focus on the metaphysics of the bread and wine, and ignore other critical features of the Eucharistic event - the gathered church, eating and drinking, the specific type of food and…

February 29, 2016
Science

How Science Progresses

In his forthcoming Wondrous Truths , JD Trout offers an alternative account of the rise of modern science. It's not the result of Christian views of the cosmos, nor of the dogged application of scientific method. It is the product of superior theory. And Western science has superior theory largely…

February 29, 2016

Invasive Gnosticism

David Gelernter claims that Trump has identified the elephant plopped on our national coffee table - political correctness. He doesn't think the label is very descriptive, preferring to call it “invasive leftism or thought-police liberalism or metastasized progressivism.” It is, he says, “the biggest issue facing America today.” Its attitude…

February 26, 2016

In Praise of Irony

Know thyself, someone said. Oh, right, answered the skeptic. “Knowing ourselves - what we are like, how we came to be this way, how we might be, and too, how we should be - is extraordinarily difficult because we are such complex and confusing creatures,” writes Terrence Martin in his…

February 26, 2016

On the Inflation of Political Speech

Reflecting on the lessons of Donald Trump in a piece at Public Discourse , Matthew Wright points to The Speechwriter , a recent book by Barton Swaim, former speechwriter to South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. Wright summarizes, “Armed with a Ph.D. in English from Edinburgh, Swaim took up speechwriting with…

February 25, 2016

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