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

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Biblical Studies

Is Abraham’s Life a Type?

The preceding essay has caused me to consider the possibility that the life of Abraham as recounted in Genesis contains a typological prophecy of the history of Israel; that is, that the events in Abraham’s life broadly anticipate events in Israel’s history. This kind of pattern is seen in the…

by James B. JordanMay 5, 2001
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Hermeneutics

Thirty-Eight Years by the Sheep Pool

by: Jeff Meyers and James Jordan In the fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of a man who had been ill for 38 years and who was lying by a pool located by the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem. This sheep waited, as did many other infirm people, for an…

by Jeff MeyersDecember 5, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

How Are Women Saved?

What had been reduced to ruin by this sex, would by the selfsame sex be recovered to salvation. As Eve believed the serpent, so Mary believed the angel. The delinquency which the one occasioned by believing, the other by believing effaced. —Tertullian What is Paul saying about women and salvation…

by Jeff MeyersOctober 5, 2000
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Jeremiah

The Return of Hamor

Back in Biblical Horizons 132 I discussed the horrible abuse of the converted men of Salem/Shechem in Genesis 34. These Hivites had joined the covenant by circumcision and then were slaughtered by Simeon and Levi. That, however, is not the end of their story. In Joshua 9 we find the…

by James B. JordanOctober 4, 2000
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Biblical Horizons

Abram’s 318 Men

Genesis 14:14 says that Abram mustered his trained men, “born in his house,” to rescue Lot, and gives their number as 318. It is clear that the precise number is provided for some reason, but what is it? S. Gevirtz notes that 318 is the sum of all the prime…

by James B. JordanSeptember 4, 2000
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Hermeneutics

153 Large Fish

Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not torn. (John 21:11) This is one of those texts in the Bible that many people puzzle over. It is not a puzzle…

by James B. JordanSeptember 4, 2000

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Crossan on Resurrection

Responding to NT Wright’s response to the critics of his resurrection book, John Dominic Crossan registered three agreements and three points in what he called an amicus curiae brief. The agreements: 1) “Resurrection” means the general bodily resurrection. To say Jesus is raised is to say that the general bodily…

November 19, 2004
Biblical Studies

Essentially Literal Translation

Jack Collins of Covenant Seminary gave a fine paper on translation theory at ETS. He argued for “essentially literal” translation, or what he also called “transparent translation.” The goal of such translation is to render the original text in the receptor language as much as possible, and to make the…

November 19, 2004

Calvin on Faith and Obedience

Did Calvin teach that faith is obedience? Sam Waldron of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says Yes and No to that. On the one hand, Waldron argued in an ETS paper, Calvin does teach that faith is obedience, not only inseparable from obedience but actually IS obedience. He quoted from Calvin’s…

November 19, 2004

Poythress on Hermeneutics and translation

Vern Poythress gave an excellent paper at ETS on truth and fullness of meaning. It was typical Poythress ?Earguing against any reductive account of meaning and language, insisting that Scripture speaks in all sorts of ways (propositions, metaphors, allusions, etc), well-informed about contemporary trends in linguistics and philosophy. Here are…

November 19, 2004
Theology

Edwards: Christology and Trinity

There were two good presentations on Edwards theology at ETS this morning. The first, by Robert Caldwell of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, focused on the role of the Spirit in Edwards’s Christology. Caldwell’s main point was that the Spirit is the mediator of the union of the divine and…

November 18, 2004

One Man for the People

The ever-inventive Jim Jordan points out this cool sequence at the center of the prophecy of Isaiah: 1) The Assyrians threaten Jerusalem, but the Lord delivers the city because of the intercession of King Hezekiah. 2) Then Hezekiah gets sick, beginning to die as king for the people. But he…

November 17, 2004

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