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

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Judges

God’s War Against Humanism: A Practical and Theological Review of "Judges" by James Jordan

This is the third of a three part symposium commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr. James B. Jordan’s publication of Judges: a Practical and Theological Commentary . Judges was the first book length exposition of Theopolitan Reading, a practice of reading Scripture in its fullness that Theopolis continues to refine…

by Stiven PeterDecember 19, 2024
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Judges

Politics and Conflict in Ancient Israel: A Critical Review of Judges by James B. Jordan

This is the second of a three part symposium commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr. James B. Jordan’s publication of Judges: a Practical and Theological Commentary . Judges was the first book length exposition of Theopolitan Reading, a practice of reading Scripture in its fullness that Theopolis continues to refine…

by Darren DukeDecember 18, 2024
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Judges

America in the Days of the Judges: A Pastoral Review of Judges by James Jordan

This is the first of a three part symposium commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Dr. James B. Jordan’s publication of Judges: a Practical and Theological Commentary . Judges was the first book length exposition of Theopolitan Reading, a practice of reading Scripture in its fullness that Theopolis continues to refine…

by Chase DavisDecember 17, 2024
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Advent

All Life is the Lord’s

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew: the only way out of this is death. Either this life inside me disappears without my consent, or I lay my own life down to line the road for another. Like palm leaves at the city entrance, allowing the…

by MargaretAnn HesterDecember 12, 2024
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Apostle Paul

The Split of Paul and Barnabas

After the Jerusalem Council (AD 48/49), which endorsed Paul’s teaching of the Gospel and established a universal theology among Christian churches, Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch and taught for some time (Acts 15:30–35). Then, it occurred to Paul to go on a second missionary trip to visit the churches…

by Ralph Allan SmithDecember 10, 2024
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Acts

The Future of Jesus | The Bodily Resurrection as Essential Context

This essay first appeared at SolomonSays.net and has been lightly edited for publishing purposes. Before I go any further on what the Bible tells us about the future history of the mortal human race , I must address the end of that history: the final resurrection. When Paul was arrested…

by Mark HorneNovember 27, 2024

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History

Jewish/Non-Jewish Gnosis

In his history of Christianity, August Neander distinguished between gnostics who arose from within Judaism and those whose inspiration came from “Oriental” modes of thought. Here is his description of the Jewish sources of gnosticism: In the following respect, all these Gnostics agree ; they all held . . .…

December 21, 2007
History

Gnosticism and Samaritan theology

A few scattered notes from Jarl Fossum’s book examining the links between the figure of the “angel of Yahweh” in Samaritan theology and the “demiurge” of gnosticism. 1) Fossum points out that Simon Magus, legendarily the fountain of Gnosticism, venerated the Torah, and that some of the church Fathers said…

December 21, 2007
History

Gnosticism and Jewish Revolt

In a 2006 book on the origins of gnosticism, Carl B. Smith offers an alternative account of the connections of Judaism and gnosticism. According to the JETS reviewer: Smith “proposes that gnosticism arose in a social context of ‘alienated Judaism’ influenced by Greco-Roman and early Christian ideas in the aftermath…

December 21, 2007

Gnosticism and AD 70

In a book published in 1959, R. M. Grant attempted “to explain Gnosticism as arising out of the debris of apocalyptic-eschatological hopes which resulted from the fall or falls of Jerusalem.” According to a reviewer in Theology T0day , “Grant stresses the Jewish element which, as he rightly says, has…

December 21, 2007
History

Yahweh/Kronos

Origen says that the Ophite demiurge had the face of a lion and was connected with Saturn, and this has led some scholars to conclude that Jaldabaoth was a combination of Baal and Kronos. John of Damascus says that the Phoenicians held Kronos to be a kind of demiurge, and…

December 21, 2007
History

Jaldabaoth

According to Alfred Honig (writing in the late 19th century), the Ophite name for the demiurge, Jaldabaoth, comes from a Hebrew phrase meaning “child of chaos,” and the etymology goes back at least to the 1820s. Scholem argued, however, that the name was invented by a Jew and is a…

December 21, 2007

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