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

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Hermeneutics

Hermeneutical Polytheism

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…

by James B. JordanJanuary 28, 1996
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Biblical Horizons

Concerning Contracts and Covenants

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…

by James B. JordanJanuary 5, 1996
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Biblical Studies

Rethinking the Order of the Old Testament

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 James B. JordanDecember 28, 1995
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Biblical Studies

At The Center of the Book of Kings

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,…

by Peter LeithartNovember 5, 1995
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Judges

Dynastic Aspirations in the Book of Judges

(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…

by James B. JordanNovember 5, 1995
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Biblical Horizons

Doing the Lord’s Supper

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…

by James B. JordanNovember 5, 1995

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Age of Bull, Age of Ram

Giorgio de Santillana ( Hamlet’s Mill , 59-60) gives a brief description of the sun’s precessional “year” as it moves through the constellations of the Zodiac: “The sun’s position among the constellations at the vernal equinox was the pointer that indicated the ‘hours’ of the precessional cycle - very long…

August 2, 2014

Darwinian Age

De Santillana ( Hamlet’s Mill , 68) on our the soporific of Darwin: “Our period may some day be called the Darwinian period, just as, we talk of the Newtonian period of two centuries ago. The simple idea of evolution, which it is no longer thought necessary to examine, spreads…

August 2, 2014

Covering

In a NYRB review of several new books on gay marriage, Edmund White reflects on the price paid by gays for the success of their efforts: “Why did mainstream America come to accept marriage equality? Gay leaders had made a convincing case that gay families were like straight families and…

August 2, 2014

Lamb and Cherub

When John first sees four multi-eyed living creatures, they are in the midst of the heavenly throne (Revelation 4:6-7). They lead the heavenly worship (4:8), but they don’t seem to act at all on earth. Then the Lamb takes the throne, and becomes the throne (5:6), displacing the creatures. And…

August 2, 2014

Pneumatology and the Neighbor

One of the most intriguing claims in Travis Ables’s Incarnational Realism is that “Christology and pneumatology do not operate on the same register; one is doctrinal, the other is the performative dimension of that doctrinal speech.” More fully: “The missions of the trinitarian persons do not necessarily entail distinct redemptive…

August 1, 2014

Earth and Sky

In his Sacred Geography of the Ancient Greeks , Jean Richer writes, “during more than two thousand years, the Phoenicians, the Hittites, the ancient Greeks, and then the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, and the R?mans, had patiently woven a fabric of correspondences between the sky, especIally the apparent course of the…

August 1, 2014

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