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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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Science

Post-Newtonian Darwininism

In a typically dense article in a volume of essays on William Desmond, Milbank suggests that both Darwin and 18th-century design theories were operating with similar post-Scotist and Newtonian notions of God’s relation to the world. He sees a quite direct analog between the development of Darwinian theory and Newtonian…

November 20, 2007
Philosophy

Milbank on Metaphysics, etc

Radical Orthodox theologians interacted with Process Theologians at an AAR session. Milbank gave an off the cuff response to the process theologians, starting with common interests among them, which he said were greater than he expected. Among them was their common resistance to the anti-metaphysical trends of modern philosophy, particularly…

November 20, 2007
History

Religious mobilizations

Charles Taylor, the 2007 Templeton Prize winner, gave an excellent, though unfortunately poorly miked, lecture at AAR. His theme was “religious mobilization,” which he introduced first by discussing the peculiar modern phenomenon of “political mobilization.” Political mobilization means activating passive political actors. As Taylor developed this notion, he said that…

November 19, 2007
Politics

God in Public

N. T. Wright has been getting heat for expressing his political opinions of late, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from his SBL address on “God in Public.” In the event, I found very little to disagree with, much to affirm heartily, and, as always with Wright, much to…

November 19, 2007

Standard sizes

Virginia Postrel has a characteristically informative and entertaining piece on standardized clothing sizes in the December issue of The Atlantic. Clothing sizing, she says, began in the mid-twentieth century when “the U.S. government established and maintained size guidelines, using data from about 16,500 women, including 6,500 members of the women’s…

November 19, 2007

Word and thing

Ezra Pound wrote, “The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised literatti - when their very medium, the very essence…

November 19, 2007

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