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

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Art

The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 3

The Failure of the Church Yet a third factor played an important role in this historical development, in addition to the imperial adoption of icons and the rise of the icons of the holy man. Brown writes: "The great Christian basilicas of the previous centuries tended to stand empty, except…

by James B. JordanSeptember 4, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

Patriarchal Dominion

The three large patriarchal narratives of Genesis concern the three aspects of the cosmos: matter, space, and time. Over these three is man given dominion. Lucifer was originally appointed to train man in this dominion, but he chose to lead man into rebellion instead. Thus, the Angel of Yahweh replaced…

by James B. JordanAugust 4, 1998
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Biblical Horizons

The Case Against Western Civilization, Part 6

Part 6: Living in a Dying World (continued) The "Trivium" (continued) The five stages of education are simply the five stages of the covenant as God administers it in human life and history, and in the liturgy of covenant renewal: First, God announces Himself. "I am Yahweh Your God." He…

by James B. JordanAugust 4, 1998
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Biblical Studies

Re-creation in the Ascension Offering

The following essay is tentative and exploratory, offered for your consideration. It seems to me that the ritual of the Ascension Offering (incorrectly translated as Burnt Offering) of Leviticus 1 is a symbolic recapitulation of Genesis 1, which thereby portrays the sacrificial ritual as way of moving from a fallen…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1998
Biblical Horizons

The Framework Hypothesis: A Gnostic Heresy

Just as the vast majority of evangelical Christians in America today are Arminian and Baptist, so the vast majority do not believe in a creation around 4000 BC. I don’t expect any of these three situations to change anytime soon. Powerful presuppositions are at work in all three instances, along…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1998
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Art

The Second Word V: On Images and Art, Part 2

The Iconoclastic Controversy Continuing Pagan Influence How did images creep in? To begin with, there was in the post-Constantinian Church a concerted effort on the part of the semi-pagans to interpret Christianity in essentially pantheistic terms. The heretics put God and man on a continuum of "being," so that God…

by James B. JordanJuly 4, 1998

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Jesus’ flesh

Ephesians 5 of course draws an analogy between marriage and Christ’s relation to His church: Husband:wife::Christ:Church Verse 29, though, puts it differently. With Genesis 2’s phrase “one flesh” in view, Paul says that “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does…

March 28, 2007

Jesus’ flesh

Ephesians 5 of course draws an analogy between marriage and Christ’s relation to His church: Husband:wife::Christ:Church Verse 29, though, puts it differently. With Genesis 2’s phrase “one flesh” in view, Paul says that “no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does…

March 28, 2007

Interpretive communities

In his homilies on Ezekiel, Gregory the Great admitted that he frequently learned as he taught: “I know that very often I understand things in the sacred writings when I am with my brethren, which, when alone, I could not understand . . . .Clearly, as this understanding is given…

March 28, 2007

Sleep-reading

In a letter to Pope Damasus, Jerome writes, “In your eyes to read without also writing is to sleep.”

March 28, 2007

Notes on Psalm 118

More or less random notes on Psalm 118. 1) The Psalm has an interesting, clumpy, arrangement. It begins and ends with the identical exhortation to “give thanks to Yahweh, for He is good, for everlasting his lovingkindness” (vv. 1, 29). The opening four verses are linked with the repetition of…

March 28, 2007
Literature

Communal Judgment, Communal Argument

William Deresiewicz of Columbia wrote a 1997 article in an issue of English Literary History that illuminates the issues in Pride and Prejudice very nicely. He starts at the beginning: Unlike other novels, Austen opens Pride and Prejudice not with the name and circumstances of the heroine, but with an…

March 28, 2007

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