Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This month we begin to set down in order comments on all the calendrical and chronological statements in the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy), gathering into one place all the fruits of our labors in this area. 1. The Days of Genesis 1 Despite the confusion and the tergiversations surrounding the…
Donald Wesley Patten, Catastrophism and the Old Testament: The Mars-Earth Conflicts (Pacific Meridian Publishing Co., 1988), reviewed by James B. Jordan. In this book, Donald Patten contends that the planet Mars originally had an eccentric orbit that brought it into near proximity to the earth a number of times in…
Last month we began a survey and review of Centuries of Darkness by Peter James. 1 The thesis of this book is that the dark ages that supposedly happened all over the Mediterranean world between about 1100 and 800 B.C. never actually happened, and that these dark ages, as well…
As we consider the Age of the Law, which begins with the public enthronement of Yahweh (the Second Person of God; the Son; the Word) on Mount Sinai and then in the Tabernacle, we need to consider the Ten Words. These are generally called the “Ten Commandments,” but that is…
Here, I begin presenting material and research that will, God willing, find eventual publication as Through New Eyes, Volume II. In Through New Eyes (part I) I sought in a general way to explain some of the symbolism and imagery of the Bible, showing that it is through such symbolism…
In 1971 there appeared a privately published book dealing with the problems surrounding the chronology of Egypt as it relates to the Bible: The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications , by Donovan A. Courville. 1 At the time, Dr. Courville (Ph.D., Chemistry) was emeritus professor of Bio-chemistry at the School…
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Leviticus 1 tells us that Yahweh called Moses from the tent of meeting to deliver instructions about sacrifice. What is that "tent of meeting" ( 'ohel mo'ed )? Judging by the usage of Leviticus, it would seem to be the tabernacle or a portion of the tabernacle. Most of the…
The Ten Words include twelve negative commands. Most of the verbs that are negated are unique: 1) Thou shalt not have ( lo' yihyeh-leka ; literally, "there shalt not be to thee") other gods. 2) Thou shalt not prostrate ( lo'-tishtachweh ) to them (i.e., images). 3) Thou shalt not…
Thomas Aquinas summed up a long tradition when he said that philosophy is theology's ancilla , its maidservant. That's an apt description, and applies as well to natural science, social science, poetry, literary criticism, history, etc. etc. Philosophy has a special role only because her work often resembles theology's, and…
John Milbank currently has a series of essays on natural law running a Church Life Journal . It's a "revisionist" account of natural law. And one of the revisions is Milbank's post-Kantian conception of the relation of nature and culture, something he lays out in his essay, " Only Theology…
Steven Duby ( Divine Simplicity ) addresses the sort of argument I offered in yesterday's post . I quote a long paragraph (p. 148), with comments interspersed. "One might contend," Duby writes, "for a divine complexity that is necessary and irrevocable with no risk of divisibility. Such a hypothesis elicits…
This is a response to the notion of divine simplicity. It's not a refutation. It's an experiment designed to tease out the logic of the claim. Simplicity means that God is without parts. He has no physical parts, and He's not a composite of any metaphysical "parts" either. He's not…
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