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

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Biblical Horizons

Was the Last Supper a Passover?

Some readers of my essay, “ Strange and Glorious New Rites ,” have written to object that I have strained a gnat and swallowed a camel. I have strained out the gnat of a possible link to the memorial bread of the minchah (Lev. 2), while overlooking the camel that…

by James B. JordanMarch 22, 2011
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Biblical Horizons

Planetary Judgments

In his lectures on Comparative Religion, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy points to five fundamental gods that were over ancient man and still can dominate us today, and which must be respected. When we sin, we respect these gods more than we respect the Creator, disobeying the First Word: “You will have no…

by James B. JordanMarch 22, 2011
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Biblical Studies

Notes on the Book of Judges

A. Israel’s failure to hold land against the Canaanites. Progressive compromise, leading to judgment. 1:1–2:5. B. Israel’s idolatry, the cycle of judges, and war as God’s chastisement. 2:6–3:6. C. Northern Gentiles (Mesopotamia), and Othniel. 3:7-11. D. Lot: Moab, and Ehud. 3:12-13. E. Minor judge: Shamgar. 3:31. F. Canaanites opposed. Women…

by James B. JordanMarch 21, 2011
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Biblical Horizons

Principalities and Powers, (Part 2)

The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, “what fate awaits them?” They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 15, 2011
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Colossians

The Principalities and Powers, Part I

Paul contends that with the death of Christ on the Cross, there was an overcoming of the Principalities and the Powers (Col. 2:15). A great deal has been written on this subject over the last 60 years. What was for a long time either ignored, or regarded by liberal scholars…

by Richard BledsoeMarch 10, 2011
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Biblical Horizons

Eating and Drinking Together

One of the odd customs that has arisen in the 20th century is that many evangelical churches warp the rites of the Lord’s Supper by insisting that everyone wait so that they eat and drink together. Supposedly this is to emphasize the unity of the Church. This practice has no…

by James B. JordanMarch 3, 2011

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Liturgical jumping

A priest of Auxerre writing in the early middle ages recorded some details of the Easter celebration: “Having receive the pilota [a leather ball] from the newest canon, the dean, or someone in his place, in former times wearing an amice on his head and the other clergy likewise, began…

August 2, 2005

The non-revolution

In a statistically rich discussion of global trends in family life, Castells notes that in the US “The number of sex partners in the last 12 months shows a limited range of sexual partnerships for the overwhelming majority of the population: 66.7 percent of men and 74.7 percent of women…

August 2, 2005
Theology

Fundamentalism revealed!

Fundamentalism in its “actual content, experiences, opinions, history, and theories” is “so diverse as to defy synthesis.” So writes Berkeley sociologist Manuel Castells in The Power of Identity (Blackwell, 2004). Yet, thanks to an exhaustive study commissioned by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences published under the title Fundamentalisms…

August 1, 2005
Politics

Death Penalty and High Justice

Do secular democracies have the right to engage in “high justice,” that is, “the attempt to balance the cosmic books, to stabilize a shaken universe” to answer the blood that cries from the ground by shedding blood? That is the question Jody Bottum raises in a fascinating article in the…

July 31, 2005

Eucharistic meditation, July 31

1 Peter 2:24-25: He Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. As…

July 31, 2005
Theology

Exhortation, July 31

On stage and in movies, revenge stories often end in bloodshed. To avenge herself on her ex-husband Jason for taking another wife, Medea kills her own children. Orestes kills his mother because she murdered his father and her husband, and Hamlet’s attack on his uncle-father Claudius engulfs the entire royal…

July 31, 2005

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