Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
A couple of decades ago, when I was a young Reconstructionist (instead of a middle-aged post-Reconstructionist), I coined the phrase "political polytheism" to describe how modern evangelical Christians approach matters of social law and politics. Christians want the Bible for Church and family life, but turn to other gods for…
Gary North has from time to time taken note of some of the differences between contracts and covenants. For him, one of the most important is the oath-character of a covenant. Naturally, the English terms "contract" and "covenant" can be used with varying nuances by different writers, and their zone…
The Book of Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testament. The word "canon" means "authoritative list" when used in connection with the Bible. What we call the Hebrew Canon consists of 24 books arranged in three major divisions: the Law, the Prophets, and the…
by: Peter Leithart and James Jordan The Book of Kings is structured chiastically, or concentrically. To see this clearly, we start in the middle and work our way outward. 2 Kings 3–7 record the central events of the ministry of Elisha. Elisha makes his first appearance in 1 Kings 19:19-21,…
(The following is a supplement to my book, God’s War Against Humanism , a study of the book of Judges, available from Biblical Horizons for $20.00 – a photocopy of the original book, which is now out of print). The turning point in the book of Judges is 8:22-28. Here…
From time to time I am asked how I think the Lord’s Supper should be done. This essay is my response to that question. To start with, we should agree that the Lord’s Supper is the only ritual we are obligated to do in the New Covenant on a routine…
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In Hebrews, atonement isn't achieved on the cross. Instead, the cross initiates a trajectory that ends with Jesus' ascent as priest into heaven. So argues David Moffitt in Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection .. He argues that the writer to the Hebrews contrasts angels and the Son to emphasize…
God created a mapped world. It was divided into zones, which were the fundamental zones of human life. God planted a garden in the east of the land of Eden. The garden wasn’t Adam and Eve’s home, but the place of their meeting with Yahweh the Creator. In the garden…
Joel Humann ends his dissertation on Numbers 19 by drawing attention to the cosmological dimensions of the ritual of the red cow. He finds conceptual and verbal links back to Genesis 1-3, allusions that explain the details of the rite and its overall thrust. The sprinkling of the corpse-defiled person…
Literary uses . Many writers allude directly and indirectly to Hamlet the play and Hamlet the prince. Melville’s Pierre tears up his copy of Hamlet while vowing to act on the new revelations concerning his dead father. Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister aspires to produce Hamlet, Eliot alludes to Hamlet in Prufrock…
Joel Humann's Durham dissertation on Numbers 19 (the red cow and the waters of purification) is wonderfully illuminating. After a judicious close reading of the chapter, he turns to the question of the placement of the passage within Numbers. He observes that in Numbers the wilderness becomes a place of…
After 1800, Hamlet became an emblem of human existence in all sorts of guises, employed as a symbolic turning point in Western cultural history, whatever the character of that turning point might be. Is the main conflict of modern Europe a religious choice between Catholicism and Protestantism? Hamlet, the student…
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