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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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Biblical Studies

Harnack on Marcion

Harnack described Marcion’s main impulses as follows: “The innovations of Marcion are unmistakable. The way in which he attempted to sever Christianity from the Old Testament was a bold stroke which demanded the sacrifice of the dearest possession of Christianity as a religion, viz., the belief that the God of…

September 29, 2005
Biblical Studies

Marcion and Biblical Studies

Peter Jones writes, “In spite of Marcion’s massive rejection of early Christian orthodoxy, and his denunciation and excommunication by the second century Church, the great nineteenth century Liberal historian and theologian, Adolf von Harnack, called Marcion ‘the first Protestant.’ For Harnack, ‘Protestant’ meant ‘liberal.’ The similarly sympathetic judgment by Helmut…

September 29, 2005
Economics

Non-monetary value

Georg Simmel wrote, “Money, with all its colorlessness and indifference, becomes the common denominator of all values; irreparably it hollows out the core of things, their individuality, their specific value, and their incomparability. All things float with equal specific gravity in the constantly moving stream of money. All things lie…

September 29, 2005

Uncleanness and the body

In his recent commentary on Leviticus (Baker), Allen Ross suggests that genital discharges were defiling because “The nature of God is so different from our human condition that the two conflict. The law made it clear that bodily functions prevent people from entering the presence of God - here or…

September 29, 2005

Beds and Altars

The woman of Shunem sets Elisha up with a table, a chair, a menorah - and a bed. The first three are clearly linked with temple furniture, but a bed? I submit that the bed is an altar, and hence the boy laid on the bed and revived is a…

September 28, 2005

God’s War

Israel’s calling was to be the focal point of Yahweh’s battle against sin. This is evident from the context of Abraham’s call in Gen. 12. Yahweh promised earlier He would no longer flood the earth. After Babel the nations have been scattered and He will no longer deal with them…

September 28, 2005

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