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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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Articulated time

According to Pickstock, Augustine’s musical ontology is not a mere subordination of space to time, or a univocal “Dionysian flow”: “just as important as the priority of time, for Augustine, is the insistence on articulation into distinct musical units or phrases, the very move which allows a stress upon the simultaneity…

September 14, 2009

Creation ex nihilo

Nothing comes from nothing.  That seems obvious, and Christians have traditionally had some difficulty explaining why creatio ex nihilo is a defensible violation of that basic principle. According to Catherine Pickstock, Augustine viewed creation ex nihilo as the most rational position.  All around us, “things are continuously coming to be…

September 14, 2009
Politics

Secular

In responding to Milbank’s analysis of Augustine on the secular, RA Markus ( Christianity And the Secular (Blessed Pope John XXIII Lecture Series in Theology and Culture) ) borrows MJ Hollerich’s summary of Milbank that there is no “neutral public sphere in which people can act politically without reference to…

September 14, 2009
Art

Kantradictions

Jean-Marie Schaeffer ( Art of the Modern Age: Philosophy of Art from Kant to Heidegger (New French Thought Series) has a blast pointing out the contradictions in Kant’s aesthetics. Most of them arise from Kant’s insistence that the judgment of taste is founded on “the form of a finality” that…

September 12, 2009
Philosophy

Effects and Causes

Can effects double as causes? Kant, still working with some form of final causality, thinks so: There are cases when “the thing that for the moment is designated effect deserves none the less, if we take the series regressively, to be called the cause of the thing of which it…

September 12, 2009
Art

Gnostikant

Evidence that Hamann had Kant right: In explaining taste as a common sense, he notes that this common sense of beauty can be arrived at by a process of stripping off whatever belongs to our perception and prejudice. That is, we put “ourselves in the position of every one else,…

September 12, 2009

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