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Writing

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

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Art

Toward a Biblical Definition of Obscenity

My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what…

by Peter LeithartMay 30, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Abomination of Desolation, Part 1

An Overview Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail. (The original form of…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 12

29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Studies

The Chronology of Ezra & Nehemiah, Part 4

We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in…

by James B. JordanMay 22, 1991
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Biblical Horizons

The Weight of Being

Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. 1 The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the…

by Peter LeithartMay 6, 1991
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Proverbs

Advice From a Sojourner, Part 11

24. Four things are small on the earth, But they are exceedingly wise; 25. The ants are not a strong folk, But they prepare their food in the summer; 26. The coneys are not a mighty folk, Yet they make their houses in the rocks; 27. The locusts have no…

by James B. JordanApril 22, 1991

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Ascension theology

I have a review of Douglas Farrow’s Ascension Theology at the Trinity House site today .

May 27, 2013

Communal interpretation

In their Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible , John O’Keefe and R. R. Reno make illuminating comparisons between the function of the patristic “rule of faith” and the use of hypotheses in modern science. Augustine says that whatever in Scripture doesn’t conduce to love…

May 25, 2013

Grammar of Salvation

In his contribution to A History of Biblical Interpretation, Volume 1: The Ancient Period (328), Joseph Trigg points to the grammatical origins of Irenaeus’s understanding of the rule of faith: “he relies on concepts take from Greco-Roman literary studies, the field known in Antiquity as ‘grammar’ and taught as part…

May 25, 2013
Literature

Chaucerian gratitude

Francis was a great grammatician of gratitude. So, according to Chesterton, was Chaucer: “He is as awakening as a cool wind on a hot day, because he breathes forth something that has fallen into great neglect in our time, something that very seldom stirs the stuffy atmosphere of self-satisfaction or…

May 24, 2013
Literature

Child’s play

Chesterton, Ker says ( G. K. Chesterton: A Biography ), recognized that playing with children is like “wrestling for hours with gigantic angels and devils.” It requires “principles of the highest morality,” to decide, for instance, “before the awful eyes of innocence, whether, when a sister has knocked down a…

May 24, 2013

The Best Giving

In his biography of G. K. Chesterton , Ian Ker summarizes Chesterton’s analysis of Francis’s praise of creation: “Francis’s ‘great gratitude’ for existence was not just a feeling or sentiment: it was ‘the very rock of reality,’ besides which ‘all facts’ were ‘fancies.’ This was ‘the fundamental fact which we…

May 24, 2013

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