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Writing

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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Gay Marriage and Statism

Milbank further argues that gay marriage is not about gay rights per se but instead about the modern state’s continuing expansion of its power and persistent elimination of all rivals. As he says, legalization of gay marriage “would end public recognition of the importance of marriage as a union of…

May 8, 2013

Impossibility of Gay Marriage

John Milbank observes that in recent British debates over gay marriage, “legislators have recognised that it would be intolerable to define gay marriage in terms equivalent to ‘consummation,’ or to permit ‘adultery’ as legitimate ground for gay divorce.” In these decisions, “the legislators have been forced tacitly to admit the…

May 8, 2013

Law and History

The final installment of Pastor Ralph Smith’s series on Deuteronomy 22-23 is up at the Trinity House web site.

May 8, 2013

Filming satire

Zachary Seward thinks people miss the point of The Great Gatsby : “many people seem enchanted enough by the decadence described in Fitzgerald’s book to ignore its fairly obvious message of condemnation. Gatsby parties can be found all over town. They are staples of spring on many Ivy League campuses…

May 7, 2013
Politics

Pity the Anarchist

In The New Yorker , Kelefa Sanneh analyzes the paradoxes of the anarchism promoted by David Graeber, the eminence grise of the Occupy movement. According to Sanneh, “Graeber refers to march planners and other organizers as ‘verticals,’ and to him this is an insult: it refers not just to defenders…

May 7, 2013
Politics

Photobombs

Marin Cogan thinks that photobombs give us an insight into the culture of Washington. “Photobomb” is “a catch-all term for the act of appearing in a photo intended to capture someone likely much more important than you.” Photobombs can be funny, embarrassing, even slightly scandalous. If you’re caught in a…

May 7, 2013

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