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Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.

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Biblical Studies

Exile or Ark?

In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…

by James B. JordanApril 10, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Mark Came to be Written

The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…

by James B. JordanMarch 24, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Matthew Came to be Written

The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…

by James B. JordanMarch 20, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

Church-Culture | Cause-Effect

There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…

by Mark HorneMarch 14, 2008
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Genesis

Is Genesis 15 an Attack on Forensic Justification?

Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…

by Mark HorneMarch 6, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

On Renewing Theology

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…

by Jeff MeyersMarch 1, 2008

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Threshing

Jaime Waters has written a book-length study of Threshing Floors in Ancient Israel . She summarizes the archaeological data regarding threshing floors, and discusses ancient agriculture, but her focus is on the theological dimensions of threshing: “in the minds of biblical writers, threshing floors served purposes beyond their agricultural functionality.”…

November 10, 2015

Voltaire's Bastards

John Ralston Saul's Voltaire's Bastards is about Voltaire. He turned the tools of irony and ridicule he learned to use from Jonathan Swift during an English exile, “into unbeatable populist weapons.” Criticisms of Voltaire from professional philosophers don't really touch him; he didn't want to construct a philosophy but to…

November 10, 2015

Metaphysics of the Mall

Chanon Ross ( Gifts Glittering and Poisoned ) offers this insightful description of the way this works in a trip to the mall: “When a consumer enters the shopping mall, her senses are engaged by a panoply of stimuli designed to intoxicate. Images, music, scents, and products swirl together in…

November 9, 2015

Flesh, Grass, Vapor, Hope

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. “All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows on it. Surely the people are grass.” Flesh is…

November 9, 2015

Prayer for Rulers

How long, O Lord, Judge of the earth, How long shall the wicked exult? They pour forth words, they speak arrogantly; All who do wickedness vaunt themselves. They crush your people, Lord, And afflict Your heritage. They slay the widow and the sojourner, And murder the fatherless. They say, “The…

November 9, 2015

Ecstatic Forgiveness

In his fascinating Gifts Glittering and Poisoned , Charon Ross summarizes John Milbank's claim that forgiveness is an ecstatic act. Forgiveness, Milbank says ( Being Reconciled ), seeks “ontological harmony.” Forgiveness is never merely “‘disinterested benevolence' but involves the forgiver abandoning himself and severing himself from himself for the sake…

November 6, 2015

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