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

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Biblical Horizons

2001: A Space Odyssey

In the November 1993 issue of Open Book Peter Leithart commented briefly on gnosticism. The film 2001 is a great specimen of gnosticism, and is worth viewing as a Sunday School project for an adult class. The author of the basic story was Arthur C. Clarke, an old-school science fiction…

by James B. JordanJanuary 6, 1994
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Biblical Horizons

Two Films by Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock’s earlier movies display a strongly moral, even Christian, point of view, and certainly can be enjoyed by Christian viewers. His later works, such as Psycho , The Birds , and his television series, are not as clearly moral in tone. In these later efforts, Hitchcock brought humorous or…

by James B. JordanJanuary 6, 1994
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Leviticus

Cult and Communication

“What art thou, thou idol ceremony?” asked Henry V during his midnight rounds of the English camp near Agincourt. His answer was that ceremony was both nothing and everything. It was nothing in the sense that it offered no guarantee that the king would be fit for office. Contrary to…

by Peter LeithartDecember 20, 1993
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Biblical Studies

Which Sacred Writings?

You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them; and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All…

by Peter LeithartDecember 20, 1993
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Biblical Horizons

The Production of the New Testament Canon: A Revisionist Suggestion

My research has led me to the conviction that there are three major periods of Biblical history, which lead to a fourth. These are the Ages of the Father, the Word, and the Spirit. The First Age, that of the Father, is recorded in the book of Genesis. It focuses…

by James B. JordanDecember 6, 1993
Exodus

Egypt in Biblical History

Both Bible history and the current consensus chronology of the ancient world are tied up intimately with Egyptian history and chronology. Thus, as we broaden Biblical Chronology beyond the matter of adding up numbers and try to integrate Biblical chronology with the ancient world, the place to start would seem…

by James B. JordanDecember 6, 1993

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Unsealed and Sealed

The Lamb receives a scroll that is sealed with seven seals (Revelation 5). One by one, He breaks the seals, and but that un-sealing climaxes with a sealing: During the sixth seal, an angel seals 144,000, 12,000 from twelve tribes (Revelation 7). The literary pattern reinforces this movement. The word…

July 31, 2014

A Deceitful Bow

Joseph is the bow-tribe, according to Genesis 49:23-24: Though attached by archers, his hands are strong to respond. Psalm 78:9 tells us that Ephraim, the largest sub-tribe of Joseph, is also a tribe of bowmen. But, referring to a battle recorded in Judges 20, the Psalm indicates that Ephraim’s bowmen…

July 31, 2014

Comet Lore

“Stars are suddenly formed in the heavens themselves,” Pliny writes in his Natural History (II.22). “Of these there are various kinds.” He goes on to enumerate them: “The Greeks name these stars comets ; we name them Crinitæ, as if shaggy with bloody locks, and surrounded with bristles like hair.…

July 31, 2014

Trinity and Atonement

Adam Johnson’s God’s Being in Reconciliation examines the work of Karl Barth in order to show how “Barth’s understanding of God’s triune being-in-act . . . provides the proper theological framework for developing the doctrine of the atonement” (10). Johnson argues that earlier studies of the Trinitarian framework for atonement…

July 31, 2014

Copyright Wars

Artists can be awfully protective of their work. In his forthcoming Copyright Wars , Peter Baldwin observes that Samuel Beckett “objected . . . when directors performed his plays with women, non-white casts, or incidental music. He sued the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge for playing Endgame in an abandoned…

July 30, 2014

Deception undone

As long as he’s in heaven preying on the child of the woman, he is called “dragon” (Revelation 12). Once cast down, his titles multiply: The dragon is also the archaic serpent, called the devil and Satan. A fourfold name for the “ruler of this world” who is cast out…

July 30, 2014

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