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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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The Contradictions of Trumpism

I n a scathing essay Trump and his New Nationalist supporters, Daniel Krauthammer observes that Trump defines national “greatness” as “winning”: “That was what his whole campaign was based on. His language is never about political ideals; it is about defeating opponents, being better than the other guy— win ,…

May 12, 2017

Justice Without Just Judges

J ustice does not, David Hume argued, arise from judges with a rigorous concern for equity. It arises, like other social goods, from the mysterious harmonization of self-interested actions: “as the self-love of one person is naturally contrary to that of another, these several interested passions are obliged to adjust…

May 12, 2017

Can We Perceive a Chair?

N ear the beginning of Value in Capitalist Society , Paul Cobben is explaining Marx's use of Hegelian themes and turns of argument when he summarizes Hegel's notion of Perception, a level of knowing beyond “Sense Certainty.” Cobben writes: Perception does not assume to have immediate knowledge of objective reality.…

May 12, 2017

Palms in the Wilderness

S olomon is a builder. The verb banah (build) is used 31 times in the Chronicler's account of Solomon, mostly with reference to the construction of the temple. Chapter 8, though, uses the verb 8 times, mainly to refer to building projects other than the temple. After twenty years of…

May 12, 2017

Prayer Power

O liver O'Donovan takes note of the power of the church's prophetic word. That's sexy. It's not so sexy to be reminded that “the church's speech is also prayer, speech addressed to God, from whom it originated, from the whole body on behalf of each charism in it” ( Desire…

May 12, 2017

Little Latin, Less Greek

R ummaging around John McGuckin's magisterial, encyclopedic, and very big history of the first millennium of Christianity, The Path of Christianity , uncovers some delightfully unexpected treasures. In chapter 7, he examines the reasons for the focus on Greek and Latin Christianity, and laments that “the non-Greek and non-Latin Christianities…

May 12, 2017

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