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

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Biblical Horizons

OPEN BOOK: Views and Reviews

Isaac E. Mozeson, The Word: The Dictionary that Reveals the Hebrew Sources of English (Northvale, NJ: Jacob Aaronson Inc., 1995), 310 pp. Reviewed by James B. Jordan. Once there was only one language in the world, the language God spoke to Adam. At the Tower of Babel, there came to…

by James B. JordanJune 28, 1996
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Esther

Esther: Historical & Chronological Comments (IV)

2. The Setting of the Book of Esther A. Xerxes (continued from previous issue) Ezra 6:14 says that the Jews finished building "according to the command of the God of Israel and the decree of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes king of Persia." The problem with this verse is that…

by James B. JordanJune 28, 1996
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Acts

Jesus and Amalek

This essay goes with our previous study of the Amalek pattern back in Biblical Horizons No. 2. Since many do not have this essay, entitled "The Battle of Gog and Magog," let me cite the relevant paragraphs: Note in Genesis 12-15 that Abram moves into the land after escaping Pharaoh…

by James B. JordanJune 28, 1996
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Proverbs

The Strange Woman

Proverbs 7:6-23 is one of several passages early in the Proverbs in which Solomon warns his son about the wiles and dangers of the "strange woman." It is certainly quite proper to take these as straightforward warnings against sexual sins, and these are certainly warnings that need to be impressed…

by Peter LeithartJune 27, 1996
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Biblical Studies

Some Observations

1. In Luke 4:20 we read that after Jesus finished reading from Isaiah, "the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him." This is usually taken in a psychological sense: They were amazed at Jesus somehow. I suggest that, as always, a merely psychological reading is a modern…

by James B. JordanMay 28, 1996
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Esther

Esther: Historical & Chronological Comments (III)

2. The Setting of the Book of Esther Up to now we have assumed what we must prove, that the king in Esther is Darius the Great. While Biblical chronologists have usually taken this position, commentators on the book of Esther have often taken others as the king. One view,…

by James B. JordanMay 28, 1996

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History

Tertullian and empire, again again

First I post a quotation, then I add a post raising questions about its genuineness. Now I find that it was genuine in the first place. Tertullian, On Idolatry , 19 asks “whether a believer may turn himself unto military service, and whether the military may be admitted unto the…

April 30, 2009
Politics

Polis against man

O’Donovan again: “By what right is the term ‘political’ claimed exclusively for the defense of social structures which refuse the deeper spiritual and cosmic aspirations of mankind? The price to be paid by classical republicanism is that of pitting political order against human fulfillment, of making the polis constitutionally hostile…

April 30, 2009
Politics

The Good of Power

“It is a Western conceit,” O’Donovan writes, “to imagine that all political problems arise from the abuse or over-concentration of power; and that is why we are so bad at understanding political difficulties which have arisen from a lack of power, or from its excessive diffusion.” He cites the example…

April 30, 2009

Blood and Soil, again

A helpful Christological response to my “blood and soil” post from Jack Kilcrease of Marquette University: “I’m currently working on an article about Gerhard Forde and the Radical Lutherans concept of discontinuity. They want between the law and gospel for there to be total discontinuity. Granted, this is to overcome…

April 30, 2009
History

Supernatural and hagiography

De Lubac traced the development of the terminology and concept of “supernatural” in the theologians, and Bartlett finds confirmation of de Lubac’s thesis by looking at hagiographic writings (collected in the 68 volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, published from 1643 to 1925!). He found no use of the word before…

April 29, 2009
Uncategorized

Land and sea

One of the virtues of Robert Bartlett’s The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (aside from a chapter on dogs and dogheads) is his discussion of the medieval puzzle concerning land and sea. By the four-elements theory, earth was the densest element, and thus should gravitate to the…

April 29, 2009

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