Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Isaac E. Mozeson, The Word: The Dictionary that Reveals the Hebrew Sources of English (Northvale, NJ: Jacob Aaronson Inc., 1995), 310 pp. Reviewed by James B. Jordan. Once there was only one language in the world, the language God spoke to Adam. At the Tower of Babel, there came to…
2. The Setting of the Book of Esther A. Xerxes (continued from previous issue) Ezra 6:14 says that the Jews finished building "according to the command of the God of Israel and the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia." The problem with this verse is that…
This essay goes with our previous study of the Amalek pattern back in Biblical Horizons No. 2. Since many do not have this essay, entitled "The Battle of Gog and Magog," let me cite the relevant paragraphs: Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh…
Proverbs 7:6-23 is one of several passages early in the Proverbs in which Solomon warns his son about the wiles and dangers of the "strange woman." It is certainly quite proper to take these as straightforward warnings against sexual sins, and these are certainly warnings that need to be impressed…
1. In Luke 4:20 we read that after Jesus finished reading from Isaiah, "the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him." This is usually taken in a psychological sense: They were amazed at Jesus somehow. I suggest that, as always, a merely psychological reading is a modern…
2. The Setting of the Book of Esther Up to now we have assumed what we must prove, that the king in Esther is Darius the Great. While Biblical chronologists have usually taken this position, commentators on the book of Esther have often taken others as the king. One view,…
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I have little sympathy overall with the work of Heikki Raisanen, but he makes some shrewd comments on Paul’s argument in Philippians 3. As he points out, several of the items on Paul’s list of “fleshly” advantages are things that he has received through no work of achievement of his…
And they dwelt three years. There was not war between ?Aram and between Yisrael. And it was in the third year And came down Yehoshafat king of Yehudah to king of Yisrael. And said the king of Yisrael to his servants, ?Do you know that to us is Ramoth-gile?ad? And…
Another benefit of considering hermeneutical issues through reflection on humor: People can say and do things that are unintentionally funny. On a strict construal of authorial intention as the source and foundation of meaning, this would have to be explained with some kind of Hirschian distinction between “meaning” and “significance,”…
The NASB translates 1 Kings 22:21 as “then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’” But the Hebrew has the definite article with “spirit” (RUACH), and the mentioned in v 23 is explicitly the Spirit of Yahweh. Apparently, it’s THE Spirit that…
I posted this a few weeks ago, but since then my web site has been experiencing technical difficulties and this post disappeared. Apart from a couple of slight stylistic changes, this is the same post. My work is cited several times in the recent Mississippi Valley Presbytery Report on the…
1 Kings 21:9-10: ?Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the people; and seat two sons of Belial before him, and let them testify against him, saying, ?You cursed God and the king.?E Then take him out and stone him to death.?E Jezebel?s plot involved proclaiming a…
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