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

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Biblical Studies

Exile or Ark?

In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…

by James B. JordanApril 10, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Mark Came to be Written

The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…

by James B. JordanMarch 24, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Matthew Came to be Written

The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…

by James B. JordanMarch 20, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

Church-Culture | Cause-Effect

There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…

by Mark HorneMarch 14, 2008
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Genesis

Is Genesis 15 an Attack on Forensic Justification?

Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…

by Mark HorneMarch 6, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

On Renewing Theology

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…

by Jeff MeyersMarch 1, 2008

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Decolonized World

I n their just-released Decolonization: A Short History , Jan Jansen and Jurgen Osterhammel observe that decolonization not only remade the maps of former colonies, but also involved the “Europeanization of Europe” and produced changes in political norms and expectations. “Decolonization,” they write “led to ‘Europe falling back on itself,'…

January 13, 2017

Caldwell on America's Fighting Faith

Christopher Caldwell's review of Walter McDougall's The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy is sooo good. McDougall explains (as his subtitle has it) “How America's Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest.” That betrayal arises from several sources. One is the vagueness of American civil religion, which means, Caldwell says, that it…

January 13, 2017

Eucharistic Sacrifice

T he joint Lutheran-Catholic reflection on the Reformation, From Conflict to Communion , acknowledges that medieval Catholicism was muddled on Eucharistic sacrifice. As a result of a “loss of an integrative concept of commemoration, Catholics were faced with the difficulty of the lack of adequate categories with which to express…

January 12, 2017

Iustus et Peccator?

F rom Conflict to Communion , the Lutheran-Catholic commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, offers a summary of Luther's theology, particularly on the points of dispute between Catholics and Lutherans. They offer the following summary of Luther's claim that believers remain simul iustus et peccator , simultaneously just…

January 12, 2017

David's Ammonite War

1 Chronicles 18–20 record David's wars with immediate neighbors of Israel. The chapters are organized chiastically: A. War with Philistia and Moab, 18:1 B. War with Ammon, Aram, and Edom, 18:2-13 C. David reigns with justice and righteousness, 18:14-17 B'. War with Ammon and Aram, 19:1-20:3 A'. War with Philistia,…

January 11, 2017

The Geography of David's Conquest

1 Chronicles 18–20 brings together David's conquests into a neatly packaged unit. (In Samuel, the same wars are scattered over several chapters.) By the end of chapter 20, David has established control over greater Israel, the ideal kingdom promised to Abraham (Genesis 15), stretching from the Euphrates (18:4) to the…

January 10, 2017

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