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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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Difference

Ancient Greeks sacrificed and ate pigs and dogs. Israelites were forbidden to do so. Ancient Greeks made blood pudding from sacrifices. Israelites were not supposed to eat blood. Ancient Greeks sometimes sacrificed pregnant sows. Israelites were commanded not to take both the eggs and the hen. Greek sacrificial goats were…

April 11, 2014

Equality and Privilege

Was sacrificial meat distributed equally or hierarchically in ancient Greece? Some have resolved the question diachronically: Archaic Greece had a more democratic sacrificial distribution that democratic classical Athens. Gunnel Ekroth concludes that the two systems lived side-by-side. Choice pieces were given to dignitaries and priests, but the bulk of the…

April 11, 2014

Hold, Cold, Between

Jesus charges the Laodicean angel with being lukewarm, neither hot nor cold (Revelation 3). This is understandably and rightly taken as a symbol of their indecisiveness and lethargic piety. But there’s a whole lot more going on. Hot and cold match day and night (Genesis 8:22). “Heat of the day”…

April 11, 2014

Thoughts on 1 Samuel 17

A few scattered thoughts on 1 Samuel 17. Saul offers David his armor for battle, but David refuses (v. 39). After the battle, though, David accepts the armor of Jonathan, signifying David’s elevation to crown prince (18:1-4). David kills Goliath with a rock, trusting in Yahweh the Rock. There is…

April 11, 2014

Socially Constructed Self

By the time a child is two, he or she has developed “narrative” memory, the ability to “store” and recall events in story form. This is essential to the development of thought and self-reflection, but it is, Daniel Siegel argues, a shared, social process ( The Developing Mind , 60-1),…

April 10, 2014

Pluralist Paralysis

Millennials aren’t apathetic or lazy, argues Zachary Fine in the NYT . They are simply paralyzed, and pluralism is one of the causes. “The art critic Craig Owens once wrote that pluralism is not a ‘recognition, but a reduction of difference to absolute indifference, equivalence, interchangeability.’ Some millennials who were…

April 10, 2014

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