God formed man from the dust (afar, עָפָר) of the earth (Gen 2:7). And humans hated him for it. We tried him, found him guilty and attacked Him. And so man returns to dust. From dust [ עָפָר ] we were taken, and to dust [ עָפָר ] we return (Gen 3:19). When God cursed …
Category Archives: Old Testament
Psalm 147 in the Light of Jesus: Sermon Notes and Handout
Question: Which of the 150 Psalms are Messianic (i.e., which of them point to, relate to, prepare us for, or are about Jesus)? Answer: All of them. Attached are the notes for a sermon (or Bible study) on Psalm 147, written to relate all the parts to Christ. The first page (a PDF file) has …
Annotated Bibliography for Genesis and the Eden Narrative
This bibliography is preparatory for a formal treatment of the theme, God on Trial (of which, see my earlier articles). I want to know, How does that theme play out in Genesis? Especially in the Garden of God? And, who has written on Genesis from this perspective? To that end, I must survey ancient and …
God is News to Satan
In Genesis 3, the news of who God is and what God is like was experienced first-hand by Satan. The news also came to Adam and Eve. Indeed, all of Genesis is the revelation of God to His creatures. For us readers, and for those who directly experienced His activities — Satan included — the …
Translating Merneptah’s Egyptian Victory Hymn
You may not know about Merneptah, but he was king of Egypt during an important time of great upheaval in Canaan — a time when Israel was settling in and taking land. Merneptah’s reign overlaps the Biblical record of Israel in Canaan; best of all, he is the first one (outside of the Bible) to …
Old Testament Manuscripts and 18 Tiqqune Sopherim
To analyze and explore a passage of the Old Testament, one must first establish the particular text (i.e., identify exactly what it is they are translating and exploring). To that end, one must know where to find the most relevant manuscripts. This article catalogs various Old Testament manuscripts with emphasis on online sources (for free …
Automobiles and Eschatology
Eschatology is the biblical study of ultimate things. All things are made for a purpose and everything has an eschatological end. God revealed an eschatology in his work of creation; we reveal our eschatology in how we live. Creation was for the enthronement of the Creator (Isaiah 66:1). Creation followed a trajectory; what God started …
Genesis: Before Abraham Was and the Documentary Hypothesis (6)
This is the final installment of my review of the documentary hypothesis (the JEDP theory) and the book, Before Abraham Was: A Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis, by Kikawada and Quinn. All page references point to it. In Parts I-V I have attempted to make a case for my own rejection of the documentary …
Genesis: Before Abraham Was and the Documentary Hypothesis (5)
This is Part V of my review of the so-called Old Testament documentary hypothesis (the JEDP theory) and the book, Before Abraham Was: A Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis, by Kikawada and Quinn. All page references point to it. Kikawada and Quinn take pains to show the thread of overpopulation and population control that …
Genesis: Before Abraham Was and the Documentary Hypothesis (4)
This is Part IV of my review of the Old Testament documentary hypothesis (a.k.a. the JEDP theory) and the book, Before Abraham Was: A Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis, by Kikawada and Quinn. All page references point to it. In Part III I introduced the idea that Genesis was connected by its form and …
Genesis: Before Abraham Was and the Connectedness of Ancient Cultures (3)
This is Part III of my review of the documentary hypothesis/JEDP theory and the book, Before Abraham Was: A Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis, by Kikawada and Quinn. All page references point to it. Many Noahs, Many Floods In the previous installment of this series, I showed how Noah’s flood was a critical test …
Genesis: Before Abraham Was and the Documentary Hypothesis (2)
This is Part II of my seven part series of the documentary hypothesis (the so-called JEDP theory of the Old Testament) and the book, Before Abraham Was: A Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis by Kikawada and Quinn. All page references point to it. In Part I, I gave basic definitions for the discussion (along …
Genesis: Before Abraham Was and the Documentary Hypothesis (1)
This series came in seven installments: an Intro, then Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Because I am preaching through Genesis it seems fair to introduce the Old Testament documentary hypothesis (sometimes called the JEDP theory), its relationship to Genesis studies, and my reasons for rejecting it. Instead of working from scratch it …
Genesis: Introduction
I am translating Genesis 1-11 as part of my PhD while preaching through it at Eastside Church of the Cross. Simultaneously, I am teaching a Hebrew course at Midwestern Baptist College using Page Kelley’s Biblical Hebrew — a grammar designed for use with the early portions of Genesis (as is my syllabus). In the process, …
Images of God used in Worship
Do the following words have any relationship to using pictures of Jesus in churches? Exodus 20:4-5. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to …
Fives Stages of the Kingdom of God
Meredith G. Kline, the late professor of Old Testament at Gordon Conwell and Westminster Seminary, is well known for his work on big-picture biblical theology. Lee Irons, one of his students, has handily summarized one of Kline’s key teachings about the Kingdom of God (click on the image to the left). To understand this chart, …
The New Exodus
Article for the Louisburg Herald, March 25th edition. The exodus was a foundational event in the Old Testament. God took a landless people, the Hebrews, and extracted them from Egypt. They were in bondage and he redeemed them. They left Egypt and went into the wilderness for a forty-year sojourn. He fed them there by …
A Nebuchadnezzar Artifact
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. Daniel 1:1; 2 Kings 24:1 Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, is recorded in the Bible (mentioned here in Daniel 1:1) and outside of the Bible. Using a cuneiform system of writing, a formula bearing …
The Prayer of Jabez
There is a little corner of the Bible that birthed a modern movement. The corner is 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 and the movement is the “Prayer of Jabez” movement. My goal is to go through the original Hebrew of this prayer (which I will try to show that it is a vow and not a prayer) …
Song of Solomon
The Old Testament book Song of Solomon may not be the love story we have always thought. I am picking up earlier proposals by scholars that Song of Solomon is a polemical book — being an attack on the kings of Judah and their sometimes tyrannical practices. The pen is mightier than the sword, and …
God on Trial. Is He Guilty? Genesis and Romans.
A major theme of Romans is the trial and vindication of God. The resurrection of Jesus is God’s trial defense and verdict. When Jesus emerged from the tomb it was the revelation of God proved right and trustworthy. For the ramifications of a trial of this sort to be grasped, the case against God must …