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

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Judges

Book Review: E. John Hamlin, At Risk in the Promised Land: A Commentary on the Book of Judges

E. John Hamlin, At Risk in the Promised Land: A Commentary on the Book of Judges International Theological Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. For anyone who has developed a taste for the rich biblical theology of Meredith Kline, James B. Jordan, Vern Poythress, and others, it is difficult to find…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 1993
Exodus

The Rock That Followed Them

". . . and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul’s passing comment about the rock that followed the Israelites in the wilderness has often been treated as a bit of…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 1993
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Biblical Studies

Elijah and Moses

Several months ago, my brief article entitled "Elijah’s Exodus" was published in Biblical Horizons . Since that time, further study has made it evident that Elijah’s exodus in 1 Kings 17 is part of a larger pattern in which Elijah’s ministry closely parallels Moses’. The following parallels are evident: Elijah…

by Peter LeithartJuly 17, 1993
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Exodus

The Footstool of His Feet

The translation and theology of the Hebrew term kapporet have long been puzzling to scholars. On the translation of the term, I have nothing new to offer. I wish instead to concentrate on the theological symbolism of the kapporet . The kapporet was the solid gold slab that laid "above"…

by Peter LeithartJune 17, 1993
Exodus

A Note on Exodus 22:31

Peter Leithart's article entitled " Prey in My House" pointed out that tearing flesh is a sign of kingly rule and dominion, and that God is portrayed as the Lion-King who tears flesh. The tithe brought to God’s house provides the money for the torn flesh of the sacrifices offered…

by James B. JordanJune 4, 1993
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Biblical Chronology

Jubilee (Part 3)

The Seventy Years of Sabbaths 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 reads: "And those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and there they were slaves to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth…

by James B. JordanApril 4, 1993

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Philosophy

Idiocy

Desmond offers an intriguing argument for a unified self, for an “idiotic” self in the original sense of idiotes , what is one’s own. There is an irreducible “mineness” to all our actions and experience, a mineness that cannot be reduced to categories or analyzed in terms of outside forces:…

May 14, 2008
Philosophy

Ontological Metaphor

Desmond takes another enthralling step. If “seeing is” may be “seeing is,” then metaphor might reveal being. “Metaphor may be a revelation of reality. Metapherein - the thing carries itself across to revelation, metaphorizes itself; this is its spread beyond univocal identity. In its self-metaphorizing, it reaches out to more,…

May 14, 2008
Philosophy

Definiteness and dynamism

It might seem that saying things have determinate qualities undermines their dynamism, while emphasizing things dynamism of things fuzzies all the boundaries to the point where there are no things at all. Desmond, again, demurs. We cannot have a pure flux without any determinacy, because then “there would be no…

May 14, 2008
Philosophy

Diminished things

Modern thought is often materialist. Whatever happens to spirit in such an outlook, at least we’ve got things left. Right? Not so, argues William Desmond ( Being and the Between ) . The doctrine of primary and secondary qualities, he says, is a “classic bifurcation of thinghood into two extremes…

May 14, 2008
Philosophy

More on Identities

As I noted a few weeks ago, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen points out that everyone has multiple identities, and that these identities slip into the foreground and background in different settings. At a family reunion, our family identity is prominent. At a political rally, family identity recedes as we join…

May 14, 2008

Limited historicism

In separating philosophy and theology, Spinoza mounts a kind of historicist critique of the Bible; its authors are bound by the assumptions of their time and culture. Besides that, the Bible and philosophy are completely different in method and style; the Bible is narrative, and its truth depends on the…

May 13, 2008

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