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Abortion

To Kill or Not to Kill

It seems to be old news, but I was unaware of it until recently. Australian academics argued that mothers should be allowed to terminate the life of a newborn child. [i] Why would they promote such an idea? Because before the child is born it is not always possible to…

by Ralph Allan SmithSeptember 12, 2019
pascal
Philosophy

Is the Betting Rigged in Pascal's Wager?

This is the second of two essays introducing Pascal’s Wager. Click HERE for Part 1. In “The Pop Star and the Mathematician” I gave an overview of the apologetic approach commonly called Pascal’s Wager. In that Wager, 17 th -century French mathematician Blaise Pascal argued that the choice between Christian…

by Alexander WhitakerSeptember 10, 2019
pascal
Philosophy

The Mathematician and the Pop Star: A Pascal's Wager Primer

This is the first of two essays aiming to introduce the reader to Pascal’s Wager. The second will address criticisms of the Wager. In the early 1990s, a perennially popular British pop star was interviewed on British television about his very public evangelical Christian faith. “What if,” the reporter asked…

by Alexander WhitakerSeptember 5, 2019
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Matthew

The Secret of the Middle of Matthew

Matthew 13 is about secrets. In this chapter, Jesus teaches eight parables and tells the disciples that they reveal the secrets of the kingdom (13:11). And much like Samson who both tells riddles and is himself a riddle that the reader must solve, so Jesus not only tells secrets but…

by John HigginsSeptember 3, 2019
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Biblical Theology

David, Goliath, and the Body of Moses, (Part 2)

Click HERE for part One. THE TEXT AS TABERNACLE Creation – Initiation – Genesis (1 Samuel 17:1-11) The gathered armies not only remind the reader of Ebal and Gerizim, but also of the very reason that Israel was established (Creation) , set apart from the other nations by the circumcision…

by Mike BullAugust 29, 2019
job
Job

The Man in the Middle

What to do with Job’s Final “Friend,” Elihu Elihu is a strange character, at least in the sense of how and where he appears in the book of Job. Why does he not appear with the other three “friends?” Does his argument differ from any of the first three who…

by Eric RobinsonAugust 27, 2019

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Entrepreneurial State

Mariana Mazzucato argues in The Entrepreneurial State that government financing and research has been crucial to the technology booms of recent decades. Jeff Madrick summarizes part of her argument in his NYRB review : “private firms often invest after innovations have already come a long way under government’s much more…

April 9, 2014

Yahweh among the Gods

Shayne Cohen notes in his Beginnings of Jewishness that “many gentiles in antiquity recognized that the God of the Jews was a powerful God” (142). He cites the magical papyri that “routinely invoke the ‘God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ ‘Iao Sabaoth,’” as well as “a disciple of the orator…

April 9, 2014

Deuteronomy among the Greeks

In a 1978 article on funeral maledictions among Greeks, Louis Robert records a curse from an inscription. Various sources have been suggested, but Robert concludes that the malediction is a word for word translation of Deuteronomy 28:22, 28. He quotes one scholar’s conclusion that an inscription that quotes Deuteronomy alongside…

April 9, 2014

Jewish Sublime

“Longinus” describes the sublime as “the echo of a great soul” ( de Sublimitate , 9.2)). The sublime can be expressed in silence or in speech, and it can be found the terrible, awe-inspiring acts of the gods. But Longinus worries that Homeric accounts of the gods “if they be…

April 9, 2014
Shakespeare

Shakespeare the Christian?

The first of several of essays on Shakespeare is up at the Colson Center Worldview Journal this morning.

April 9, 2014

Pillar in the Temple

Jesus promises to make the overcomers in Philadelphia “pillars in the temple of My God” (Revelation 3:12). Yahweh was the original pillar. He led Israel to Sinai in a pillar of cloud, and then His cloudy pillar filled the tabernacle. Yahweh is the pillar in His own house, the load-bearing…

April 8, 2014

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