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Writing

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

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Biblical Studies

Exile or Ark?

In the Fall 2007 issue of JBL is an essay “Jonah Read Intertextually” by Hyun Chul Paul Kim of Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio. The first section of the essay points to numerous linguistic and conceptual parallels between Jonah (“Dove”) and the Noah narrative: Destruction of the earth, including…

by James B. JordanApril 10, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Mark Came to be Written

The phone rang. “Hello, this is John Mark.” “Hi, JM. This is Simon Peter.” “Oh, hello, Mr. Rock,” said Mark. “What can I do for you?” “Well, JM” said Peter, “I’ve been very impressed by your recent essays in the New Jew Review , especially your series on David as…

by James B. JordanMarch 24, 2008
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Biblical Studies

How Matthew Came to be Written

The sun had set and finally the crowds had dispersed. The disciples gathered in the upper room, exhausted but joyful after preaching and teaching in many different languages all day, not to speak of seeing to the baptism of three thousand people. James bar Alphaeus put on a CD of…

by James B. JordanMarch 20, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

Church-Culture | Cause-Effect

There was a time, I think, when Evangelical Christianity in North America tended to be dominated by what might be (pejoratively) called a “retreatist” or even “defeatist” view of society. For various reasons, Christians believed that society was headed downhill and there was nothing the Church could do about it,…

by Mark HorneMarch 14, 2008
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Genesis

Is Genesis 15 an Attack on Forensic Justification?

Hebrews 11 makes it very clear that Abram (later, Abraham) exercised saving faith from the time he left his home to go wonder in Caanan. He was justified at least from the time of the call in Genesis 12.1-3 on. Yet I keep reading people who think that any appeal…

by Mark HorneMarch 6, 2008
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Biblical Horizons

On Renewing Theology

I spent the last few days at A Conversation on Denominational Renewal , which thankfully met in St. Louis. The conference was well attended, about 300 or more people. The audience was mostly PCA ministers and elders, but because it was held in St. Louis there were a good many…

by Jeff MeyersMarch 1, 2008

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Pigs and Beautiful Women

“A s a ring of gold in a swine's snout, so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion” (Proverbs 11:22). During his courtship with his future wife, a friend of mine wrote a note and cited a Proverb at the end. He meant Proverbs 22:11. He put Proverbs 11:22. They…

March 10, 2017

Gold of Ophir

D avid and Solomon traded in gold from “Ophir.” Later Jehoshaphat attempted to revive the trade route, but failed when his ships sank. Ophir—now where might that be? Truth is, nobody knows. In Seafaring Lore and Legend , Peter Jeans summarizes some of the tantalizing possibilities: “The ancient ruins discovered…

March 10, 2017

Poetry and Performance

I n an old Paris Review interview with Robert Frost, the interviewer mentions a poet who writes from six to nine every morning. Frost responds with, “I don’t know what that would be like, myself,” and then adds about writing couplets: Very first one I wrote I was walking home…

March 10, 2017

Divine Laughter

S tephen Halliwell begins his Greek Laughter by calling attention to the difference between philosophical and poetic notions of divine laughter. Most Greeks had no doubt that “laughter (and smiles) had an important place in the divine realm; a deity incapable of laughter was the exception, not the rule.” Homer…

March 10, 2017

Why Do We Laugh?

R obert Provine ( Curious Behavior ) notes that we can't laugh on command, and that tells a lot about our laughter and ourselves. In his experiments, he found that it took longer for people to laugh on command than to say “ha, ha.” That “indicates that laughter is not…

March 10, 2017

House of Rest

D avid assembles the leaders of Israel for Solomon's coronation (1 Chronicles 28–29; cf. 29:22), and, even more importantly, to encourage them to contribute skill, energy, and material to the temple, King Yahweh's fortress. Judged by terminology used elsewhere in the Old Testament, his descriptions of the temple are eccentric.…

March 9, 2017

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