Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
21. Under three things the earth quakes. And under four, it cannot bear up. 22. Under a slave when he becomes king, And a fool when he is satisfied with food, 23. Under an odious woman when she gets a husband, And a maidservant when she supplants her mistress. The…
We have looked at the prima facie evidence for a short chronology in Ezra-Nehemiah, a chronology that assumes that the Artaxerxes of Ezra 7ff. and Nehemiah is in fact Darius. This month we examine the argument against the short chronology. There is only one argument, and that is that the…
The Priestly Genealogy Jeshua the high priest, who returned with Zerubbabel, was not a young man at the time. We know this because his father, Jehozadak, was taken into captivity (1 Chron. 6:15). Thus was 50 years before the decree of Cyrus (2 Kings 25:18-22, by implication). Jehozadak’s father Seraiah,…
Thomas C. Oden, After Modernity . . . What? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990. Reviewed by Rev. Jeffrey Meyers. Reading Oden’s After Modernity . . . What? was tonic. There were passages that launched me out of my chair with a hoot to pace the office floor — of course, the…
Matthew records that Jesus "withdrew" to Galilee to begin His public ministry there after He "heard that John had been delivered up" (Mt. 4:12). Matthew’s typically matter-of-fact style veils the truly remarkable character of Jesus’ withdrawal. Matthew has been presenting Jesus as the Messiah, the Seed of Abraham and Son…
John Brown called this one of the most difficult passages in the entire epistle to the Hebrews, and Hebrews is no easy book. Several questions confront us as we read and meditate on these verses. First, in what sense did the Old Testament saints described in verses 4-38 not receive…
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This is the last in a series of posts summarizing the way I’ve taught an Old Testament survey to kids aged 5-11 this summer. Overall, it’s worked well. We’ve covered a lot, and the kids have learned some of the basic patterns of the Bible. It got more difficult the…
Archaeology seems to be on the margins of cultural history, the province of antiquarians. In her fascinating Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism , though, Cathy Gere traces the impact of Arthur Evans’ excavation and reconstruction of Minoan civilization on modernists from Nietzsche to Freud, Joyce to Robert Graves. Evans…
For the past several decades, Christian activists have been concerned to apply Christian standards to the political and moral issues of our day. I support the effort in principle, and agree with much of the substance. Yet something is missing. In their obsession with discovering biblical standards they haven’t paid…
Exodus 20:23-24: You shall not make other gods besides me, gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves. You shall make an altar for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and oxen; in every place…
The Ten Words deal with perennial sins. Idolaters are everywhere all the time. We all hate, lust, envy. Poison of asps is under our lips too. The Ten Words are addressed to us because they are addressed to everyone. But what use are all these detailed commandments? Why do we…
The opening pages of Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) (pp. 1-9) are a brilliant reflection on theory formation. Pierre Bourdieu examines the “theoretical distortion” that get embedded in social science, especially anthropology, when the observer ignores the “social conditions in which the…
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