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

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Biblical Horizons

Entropy and Depravity

What do you think of the way "creation science" uses the "second law of thermodynamics" to argue that human society will become more and more depraved, and that the universe is running down? Creation Science is not monolithic, and so it would be unfair to say that everyone working in…

by James B. JordanOctober 24, 1992
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Deuteronomy

The Firstborn Son’s Double Portion

From time to time we receive questions that are interesting, and that other people would also be interested in. I'll [address] two such questions in this issue [and the next]. I recently made a will which, in the event that my wife does not survive me, grants my eldest son…

by James B. JordanOctober 24, 1992
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Biblical Studies

Meredith G. Kline and the Myth of the Old Testament

As we go from Old Testament chronology to New Testament chronology, it will be a good idea to examine a deep-seated myth that is profoundly intertwined with Biblical Christianity. I have in mind the myth that there is in the Bible such a thing as a collection of books called…

by James B. JordanOctober 24, 1992
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Biblical Studies

Umberto Cassuto and the Documentary Hypothesis

Several years ago, the Wall Street Journal gave prominent recognition to a book called Who Wrote the Bible? The book was a popularization of the famous "Documentary Hypothesis," which claims that the Pentateuch was not the work of Moses, but was a (rather incompetent) pastiche of contradictory sources written much…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 1992
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James

Creation Symbolism in the Epistle of James

The epistle of James has long presented dificulties for New Testament scholars. Its seemingly moralistic tone, its apparent inattention to theological concerns, its defense of "justification by works" all have made it dificult for interpreters to discern its compatibility with other New Testament books. Luther’s dismissal of James as an…

by Peter LeithartSeptember 17, 1992
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Leviticus

The Lamb of God, (Part 2)

Why the Lamb? But why the lamb? We have seen that the bull was the offering for the sins of priests, especially as they represented the nation before God in His house. Wasn’t Christ the greatest of all men? Wasn’t He the Great High Priest? Should He not rather be…

by James B. JordanAugust 24, 1992

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Philosophy

Hamann and Mendelssohn

I fell for it. Hamann begins a brief discussion of the temporality of truth apparently agreeing with Mendelssohn, “I, too, know of no eternal truths except those who are unceasingly temporal.” Stephen Dunning ( Tongues of Men ) explains the dense irony of the statement. Hamann is responding to Mendelssohn’s…

September 27, 2008
Uncategorized

Observation and prophecy

Hamann writes, “The spirit of observation and the spirit of prophecy are the wings of human genius. All that is present belongs to the domain of the former; all that is absent, the past and the future, belongs to the domain of the latter. Philosophical genius expresses its power through…

September 27, 2008
Uncategorized

Words and meanings

Hamann (“Metacritique”) says that “words as undetermined objects of empirical concepts are entitled critical appearances, specters, non-words or unwords, and become determinate objects for the understanding only through their institution and meaning in usage. This meaning and its determination arises, as everyone knows, from the combination of a word-sign, which…

September 27, 2008
Philosophy

Temporality of truth

Hamann agreed with Mendelssohn that there are “no eternal truths save as incessant temporality,” and in this he locates the difference between Judaism and Christianity: “it is solely a matter of temporal truths of history, which occurred once and never come again - of facts which have become true at…

September 27, 2008
History

Prophetic history

Hamann from “Golgotha and Sheblimini”: “the entire range of human events and the whole course of their vicissitudes would be encompassed and divided into subsections just as the starry firmament is divided into figures, without knowing the stars’ number. Hence the entire history of the Jewish people, by the allegory…

September 27, 2008

Multiplied curse

Before God tells creatures to “be fruitful and multiply,” He blesses them. Blessing is a verbal pronouncement that proliferates. But so is curse: “Your sorrows will be multiplied,” Yahweh tells Eve at the gate of the garden, and later wicked people multiply on the earth, long before the righteous do.

September 27, 2008

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