Category: Interpreting The Old Testament
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Dominion and Dynasty
I am a big fan of the New Studies in Biblical Theology series, and this title is no exception. In Dominion and Dynasty, Stephen Dempster walks you through a theology of the Old Testament, but in an easily accessible way, focusing on the literary character of the Old Testament as a Text (capitalized to help you think…
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Fall: God Judges
[This post is part of the Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe series] In some ways, this chapter of Doctrine picks up where Creation: God Makes left off, and rounds out a set of three chapters that mainly center on exposition from Genesis 1-3. This one of course, covers chapter 3 which is the narrative description of the…
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Old Creation
[This post is part of the Eschatology series] Having talked about an overall kind of philosophy of eschatology, here is a brief (very!) overview of the drama of redemption. It essentially breaks out into this section on old creation, or creation and fall, followed by a discussion of new creation and redemption. What is then…
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Image: God Loves
[This post is part of the Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe series] n this chapter of Doctrine, several interesting and vital concepts are introduced. Before even starting to answers questions, there is a brief discussion of mankind’s desires for autonomy. The discussion is framed in terms of our modern conception of man as an autonomous individual rather…
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Dispensationalism
[This post is part of the Eschatology series] If you remember where we left off, it was an exploration of the millennial options. It is unfortunate to say the least, that one’s eschatology is basically categorized by how you interpret Revelation 20. My study of the topic over the course of this semester has helped…
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Creation: God Makes
[This post is part of the Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe series] Of all the chapters in this book, this one may perhaps be the most controversial. Certainly among non-Christians, who may at least be open to God’s existence and maybe other elements of the Christian faith, creation is the sort of doctrine that has few, if…
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Revelation: God Speaks
[This post is part of the Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe series] This chapter, much like the last one, and all the ones I’ve read so far, really deserves a much fuller treatment. But again, Doctrine sets out to be concise as it can, and so this chapter probably could not be any shorter without losing something…
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Atonement: Foundations
[This post is part of the Atonement series] In this post, I’m simply going to give a survey of the major Old Testament passages that support the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, mostly following the formulations laid out in Jeffery, Ovey, and Sach’s book, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. In a sense, this…
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The Temple and The Church’s Mission
[This post is part of the Eschatology series] This book I had actually started back in the fall as part of an investigation for a class on the ancient Near East. I was looking into the significance and purpose of temples, and G.K. Beale in this book has a rather extensive section on the cosmic…
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The 3rd Word
It is interesting to note that in the Old Testament, what we call the 10 Commandments, are not ever referred to as such. In the Septuagint (Greek translation of the OT) they are referred to as the Decalogue, which in Greek would mean the 10 words. The Hebrew comes out meaning “the 10 pronouncements,” so…