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Biblical Chronology

The Chronology of the Pentateuch (Part 1)

This month we begin to set down in order comments on all the calendrical and chronological statements in the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy), gathering into one place all the fruits of our labors in this area. 1. The Days of Genesis 1 Despite the confusion and the tergiversations surrounding the…

by James B. JordanMarch 6, 1994
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Biblical Chronology

Book Review: Catastrophism and the Old Testament

Donald Wesley Patten, Catastrophism and the Old Testament: The Mars-Earth Conflicts (Pacific Meridian Publishing Co., 1988), reviewed by James B. Jordan. In this book, Donald Patten contends that the planet Mars originally had an eccentric orbit that brought it into near proximity to the earth a number of times in…

by James B. JordanFebruary 14, 1994
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Biblical Chronology

Problems With Current Consensus Chronology

Last month we began a survey and review of Centuries of Darkness by Peter James. 1 The thesis of this book is that the dark ages that supposedly happened all over the Mediterranean world between about 1100 and 800 B.C. never actually happened, and that these dark ages, as well…

by James B. JordanFebruary 14, 1994
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Deuteronomy

The First Word

As we consider the Age of the Law, which begins with the public enthronement of Yahweh (the Second Person of God; the Son; the Word) on Mount Sinai and then in the Tabernacle, we need to consider the Ten Words. These are generally called the “Ten Commandments,” but that is…

by James B. JordanFebruary 14, 1994
Biblical Horizons

Through New Eyes, Volume II

Here, I begin presenting material and research that will, God willing, find eventual publication as Through New Eyes, Volume II. In Through New Eyes (part I) I sought in a general way to explain some of the symbolism and imagery of the Bible, showing that it is through such symbolism…

by James B. JordanJanuary 6, 1994
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Biblical Chronology

The Egyptian Problem

In 1971 there appeared a privately published book dealing with the problems surrounding the chronology of Egypt as it relates to the Bible: The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications , by Donovan A. Courville. 1 At the time, Dr. Courville (Ph.D., Chemistry) was emeritus professor of Bio-chemistry at the School…

by James B. JordanJanuary 6, 1994

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Jane Jacobs at 100

T o celebrate the centenary of Jane Jacobs's birth, Adam Gopnik devotes a New Yorker piece to the lyricist of the American city. Gopnik finds that her classic, Death and Life of Great American Cities “is still astonishing to read, a masterpiece not of prose—the writing is workmanlike, lucid—but of…

September 30, 2016
American Politics

Rooting out Burrowers

S everal weeks ago, I devoted my FT column to examining the Obama administration’s effort to consolidate its gender-equality gains by hiring attorneys to investigate and prosecute civil rights violations. Obama appointees will burrow in and continue the Obama agenda after he leaves office. Evan Osnos's attempt to imagine Trump’s…

September 30, 2016

Origins of Islam

O nce upon a time, everyone knew how Islam came into existence. As Tom Holland says ( In the Shadow of the Sword ), “Whole centuries’ worth of scholarship have been founded on the presumption that the sources for early Islam can be trusted. To this day, they continue to…

September 30, 2016

God With Us

E veryone who has sung a Christmas carol knows that “Immanuel” means “God with us,” but centuries of singing about Immanuel have domesticated and sentimentalized the word. The concept of “Immanuel” has a long history before Isaiah applied it to a child Messiah (Isaiah 7). It arises, in part, from…

September 30, 2016

It's the Theology, Stupid

T homas Small doesn’t think Hugh Kennedy’s Caliphate gives enough attention to the theological roots of the Caliphate. In his TLS review , he writes wryly: “ Reading Kennedy’s account of the Caliphate, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that there’s anything particularly religious about it. ” According to Small, the…

September 30, 2016

Get Ready to Rumble

Early in his To Change the World , James Davison Hunter counters simplistic Christian understanding of cultural change with a series of propositions about the character of culture and the dynamics of cultural change. Proposition Eleven is simultaneously reassuring and sobering: “Cultures change, but rarely if ever without a fight”…

September 30, 2016

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