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Writing

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

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Revelation

The Seven Thunders, An Interpretive Suggestion

And He cried out with a loud voice, as when a lion roars; and when He had cried out, the seven thunders spoke their voices (Revelation 10:3). In Revelation 10 John sees Jesus come down to him from heaven with a little book in His hand. Jesus cries out with…

by James B. JordanOctober 7, 1994
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Biblical Chronology

Genesis 5 & 11: Chronological-Theological Reflections

The numbers found in Genesis 5 & 11 display characteristics that indicate a complex and meticulous symbolic schematization operating at several levels. Because these numbers are so potent symbolically, unbelieving scholars have universally (as far as I know) treated them as artificial. Believers take them literally, but believers must also…

by James B. JordanOctober 7, 1994
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Revelation

The Kings From the East

And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the east [sunrising]. (Revelation 16:12) The kings from the east in Revelation 16:12 are generally assumed to be enemies of…

by James B. JordanSeptember 10, 1994
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Biblical Studies

Covenants and Dates

During my brief sojourn as a pastor during the 1980s, I had several occasions to be involved in settling disputes between men in the congregation I served. A typical dispute went like this: Two men formed a company to do business. After a few years, the business went sour, and…

by James B. JordanSeptember 10, 1994
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Revelation

The Grape Harvest of Revelation 14:17-20

The two harvests of Revelation 14:14-20, of grain and of grapes, are most often understood as symbolic of God’s judgment against the wicked, or against Babylon, as amplified in chapters 16 & 17. Some commentators, however, notice that the gospels speak of the grain harvest as a reaping of the…

by James B. JordanAugust 10, 1994
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Deuteronomy

The Chronology of the Pentateuch (Part 6)

(Conclusion of Chapter 16 in the previous Biblical Chronology Article) Month 3, 2513 According to Leviticus 23:15-16, Pentecost was to be observed 50 days after the sabbath after Passover, or 49 days after the Feast of First Fruits. I initially based my reflections on the Jewish tradition that the Law…

by James B. JordanAugust 10, 1994

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Economics

Consumerism

Consumerism is a popular category of analysis, but what exactly does it mean? How is consumerism or the consumer society different from anything else? Haven’t every economies had producers and consumers? In his The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism , Colin Campbell offers this description of consumerism:…

February 23, 2006
History

Aesthetic proletariat

Bohemians, Featherstone suggests, were the first “true artistic proletariat,” living next to lower class people in low-rent areas of the larger cities, and imitating the lifestyle of the lower classes: “They cultivated similar manners, valuing spontaneity, an anti-systematic work ethos, and a lack of attention to the sense of ordered…

February 23, 2006
History

Aestheticization of life

Featherstone isolates three aspects of the postmodern aestheticization of daily life: 1) Artistic movements such as Dada and Surrealism attempt to break down the boundary between art and daily life by turning toilets and such into art objects. This is both an attempt to “dissemble [art’s] sacred halo and challenge…

February 23, 2006
Literature

Theater of the Absurd

In a lecture on Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Ian Johnston makes this helpful distinction between existentialist drama and the Theater of the Absurd. “In the Theatre of the Absurd the protagonists are discovered in a world which they do not, indeed they cannot, understand. It has no…

February 23, 2006
History

Postmodern mathesis

Modernity attempts to spatialize time, and to chart temporally shifting reality in a fixed mathesis. So argues Catherine Pickstock at least. But in this sense postmodernism is hypermodernism. Featherstone notes that MTV “seems to exist in a timeless present with video artists ransacking film genres and art movements from different…

February 23, 2006
History

Turn of the Century Bobos

Mike Featherstone, expounding on the “aestheticitization of everyday life” that he claims is characteristic of the postmodern ethos, notes that similar motifs are evident in the early development of the fashion industry: “The intensified place of fashion increases our time-consciousness, and our simultaneous pleasure in newness and oldness gives us…

February 23, 2006

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