I vividly remember the days of my youth living in Mississippi. On bright summers days, my friends and I spent a lot of time outside. We’d compare our shadows as the blazing sun hit our backs. We’d run, jump, and flail our arms, watching our shadows...
When he speaks of the kingdom of God, Jesus simultaneously captures our greatest dreams and summarizes the drama of salvation history. The idea of God’s own kingdom is evocative: the ideal society, utopia, paradise. A kingdom in which all citizens...
You probably don’t use the word defiled in everyday conversation. But if the synonyms dirty or unclean come to mind, you’re on your way to understanding the key Old Testament theme of defilement. It’s just that in Scripture, defilement isn’t limited...
The elderly gentleman who confronted me after my adult catechesis class did not look particularly happy with me. He asked what I meant when I said the Trinity isn’t in the Bible, opening his well-worn King James Bible to 1 John 5:7–8 and stabbing a...
"Joshua is not intended to be used as a study of applied ethics." - John Walton
Prophetic practices in the Hebrew Bible find parallels in the ANE literature. These parallels are useful for the biblical interpreter, but before jumping into various texts one must ask the essential question: what is prophecy? Defining Prophecy...
This post is excerpted from Dr. Michael Heiser’s course Problems in Bible Interpretation: Difficult Passages IV, available now from Logos Mobile Education. *** The Old Testament is filled with odd stories that take us by surprise. One of those...
There is a huge problem in the way that biblical Hebrew is currently taught: it doesn’t stick. Polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE, is better known by its household name “Teflon.” It’s the coating on cookware that prevents food from...
Psalm Two’s familiar contents have made it a favorite among students, pastors, and scholars alike, as it has echoes of the Davidic covenant, eschatological hopes, and the promise of divine justice. The psalm is quoted or alluded to frequently in the...
Here’s something you probably never thought to count: The ESV uses the word “but” 4,205 times. That’s nearly once for every 7 verses. That’s a lot. (The NASB has “but” slightly more times, the NIV slightly fewer. But they’re all in the same range.)...
by Luke Nagy We’ve all heard the saying, “this world is not my home; I’m just a passing thro’.” The words are from a hymn penned in 1919, and arranged in 1937. It reflects a popular attitude among Christians in America at the time, and currently. A...
Did you know it’s easy to find Jesus in the Old Testament? Once you know how to look, you’ll find him everywhere—through prophecies, typology, and much more.
Some time ago my wife and I visited a church we’d never been to before and heard a message about Old Testament promises, specifically from one paragraph in Joshua 1. Take particular note of the promises because the preacher did: This Book of the Law...
Dustin Burlet | Peace River Bible Institute T. Desmond Alexander once stated, with respect to teaching the Old Testament, that it is “difficult to think of any other academic subject that covers such a wide range of fields. How does one do justice...
LISSA M. WRAY BEAL | PROVIDENCE UNIVERSITY The Old Testament speaks of the importance of memory. For instance, Deuteronomy repeatedly calls for remembrance (5:15; 7:18; 8:18 et passim), Israel recounts its history in Psalms (105, 106), and failure...
Learn little-known facts about polygamy in the Bible, what Jesus says about polygamy, and whether Jesus and Paul changed God’s commands.
"The contribution, then, constitutes the addition of more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of a previously published scroll, 8HevXIIgr."
Logos is an incredibly useful tool straight out of the box (or off the website). But as with any tool, it can take some time to get to know it well and use it better. As an academic user, you’re also coming to Logos from a specific angle. Your...
“What does God say about hell?” asks Kris Brossett, kicking off his two-article series on the topic. Brossett proceeds to survey the three historic Christian views of hell—eternal torment, conditional immortality, and universalism—and commendably...
"This [digital] edition will open up the research of the Handbook for easy access...It is a welcome development in the dissemination of the Handbook."
"There are no better guides to the state of scholarship." - John J. Collins
by Kris Brossett In Part I of Kris Brossett’s series he discussed three views of hell, including Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT), Annihilationism/Conditional Immortality (ACI), and Christian Universalism (CU). In this second section, Kris...
"If we truly believe that the church is one body, then we ought to be aware of what is happening in the rest of the world. After all, our scholarship ought to serve the Church and society. This is the concept of unity in diversity and the...
How should Christians relate to the Old Testament Law? Ever since Paul addressed this issue in his epistles, theologians have agreed that our relationship to the Law has changed on account of the death of Christ. But grasping the exact nature of...
"Every theology is contextual." - Federico Villanueva
Textual criticism is a hot topic among biblical scholars. The views on the discipline’s profitability span the extremes of being of crucial importance for serious scholarship and the opposing view of being hostile towards the revered doctrines of...
Ryan Nelson discusses the importance of apologetics and being able to discuss faith with others (:10), and Dr. Michael Heiser discusses God as man in the Old Testament (2:50). Start studying apologetics Challenges to Christianity come from a...
Biblical performance criticism is a methodology based on the assumption that much of the literature collected in the Bible represents oral performances that were at one time either told from memory or presented as prepared readings before audiences...
"TBAC has three main distinctives. First, as already mentioned, it is substantially longer and more in-depth. Second, it is explicitly Christocentric in its entire structure and orientation. And third, it follows a different sequence that is...