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

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Biblical Horizons

Entropy and Depravity

What do you think of the way "creation science" uses the "second law of thermodynamics" to argue that human society will become more and more depraved, and that the universe is running down? Creation Science is not monolithic, and so it would be unfair to say that everyone working in…

by James B. JordanOctober 24, 1992
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Deuteronomy

The Firstborn Son’s Double Portion

From time to time we receive questions that are interesting, and that other people would also be interested in. I'll [address] two such questions in this issue [and the next]. I recently made a will which, in the event that my wife does not survive me, grants my eldest son…

by James B. JordanOctober 24, 1992
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Biblical Studies

Meredith G. Kline and the Myth of the Old Testament

As we go from Old Testament chronology to New Testament chronology, it will be a good idea to examine a deep-seated myth that is profoundly intertwined with Biblical Christianity. I have in mind the myth that there is in the Bible such a thing as a collection of books called…

by James B. JordanOctober 24, 1992
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Biblical Studies

Umberto Cassuto and the Documentary Hypothesis

Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal gave prominent recognition to a book called Who Wrote the Bible? The book was a popularization of the famous "Documentary Hypothesis," which claims that the Pentateuch was not the work of Moses, but was a (rather incompetent) pastiche of contradictory sources written much…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 1992
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James

Creation Symbolism in the Epistle of James

The epistle of James has long presented dificulties for New Testament scholars. Its seemingly moralistic tone, its apparent inattention to theological concerns, its defense of "justification by works" all have made it dificult for interpreters to discern its compatibility with other New Testament books. Luther’s dismissal of James as an…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 1992
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Leviticus

The Lamb of God, (Part 2)

Why the Lamb? But why the lamb? We have seen that the bull was the offering for the sins of priests, especially as they represented the nation before God in His house. Wasn’t Christ the greatest of all men? Wasn’t He the Great High Priest? Should He not rather be…

by James B. JordanAugust 24, 1992

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Referees, Players, and Religious Liberty

I recently had an argument with my Lutheran brother concerning the subject of my forthcoming book, The End of Protestantism . The book is a plea to Protestants to pursue a deeper and wider unity within the church. My brother wasn’t convinced, and his response was severalfold: Lutherans aren’t going…

September 15, 2016

Jubilee

W illiam Johnstone points out ( 1 & 2 Chronicles , 1.15–16) that the Chronicler’s chronology “is related to the jubilee (Lev. 25:8–55): in the fiftieth year ‘you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family’ (Lev. 25:10). For C, the…

September 15, 2016

Stand, Serve, Sing

I t’s an ancient insight: Music tunes the soul. Music doesn’t just express what we’re feeling. It forms emotions. Emotions aren’t simply sensations. Emotions, as Robert Solomon has argued, are judgments about the world. Anger is a judgment concerning an outrage or injustice; fear is a judgment that a threat…

September 13, 2016

Sacraments and the Liberal Establishment

D avid L. Schindler ( Ordering Love ) exposes the “instrumentalism” that functions as the public philosophy of what he describes as the “juridical state,” an instrumentalism that he does not hesitate to describe as “violent” insofar as it excludes, in the name of fairness, any “ order of truth…

September 13, 2016

Liturgy and Totalizing Politics

I n his Political Worship , Bernd Wannenwetsch observes that “Worship again and again interrupts the course of the world. Through worship the Christian community testifies that the world is not its own. And this means also that it is not kept alive by politics, as the business of politics,…

September 12, 2016

Learning Like a Tudor

S cott Newstok urges students to learn like Shakespeare in a convocation address at Rhodes College . That means learning rhetoric: “in the Renaissance, rhetoric was nothing less than the fabric of thought itself. Because thinking and speaking well form the basis of existence in a community, rhetoric prepares you…

September 9, 2016

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