Chapter 24 is a turning book in the book of Ezekiel. After Ezekiel’s call (Ch. 1-3), the book has, to this point, been a series of gloom-and-doom pronouncements to the exiled Jews in Babylon subverting their expectations that Jerusalem, the temple, and their friends...
1-2 Samuel
Naked Bible 85: Q&A 9
Our 9th Question and Answer episode! Also find out what topics are next for the podcast. Harvey book on the term Jew: Graham Harvey, The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew, and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Brill, 2001) Transcript 85...
Two Reviews of Archaeologist Israel Finkelstein’s Minimalist Approach to Monarchic Israel
The Biblical Archaeology Society’s Bible History Daily website recently featured two reviews of Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein’s new book, The Forgotten Kingdom: The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel (Ancient Near East Monographs) . Both...
Yahweh and Satan in Samuel and Chronicles
What follows is the pre-edited version of an article I wrote for Bible Study Magazine a couple years ago.[1. For a scholarly journal article that argues for the angel connection / explanation in the piece, see Paul Evans, “Divine intermediaries in 1 Chronicles...
Israelite Kingship: Good or Bad in the Eyes of God?
When God tells Samuel, Israel’s judge, to anoint a king for Israel according to their demands with the words “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam 8:7), many Bible readers and students assume that...
Lying and Deception
As a follow-up to the “God and deception” post, let me sketch out my position on the issues I raised. I define a lie as the deliberate utterance of a falsehood — something contrary to reality — with specific intent to deceive or conceal the...
Does God Lie?
This has been on my list of things I really want to dive into (having taught ethics for a number of years). We know that there are specific statements asserting very clearly that God does not tell lies (e.g., Num. 23:19; Titus 1:2). However, God does use deception. ...
Biblical Anthropology and the Mind-Body Debate, Part 1
We now come to one of the primary points of application for the data of biblical anthropology, the mind-body problem. Before sketching the various views for you, let’s review the salient data from the biblical text. Review 1. That terms like ruach, nephesh,...
ZIBBC Volume 2
Volume 2 of the ZIBBC covers the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth and 1-2 Samuel. Like volume 1 (Pentateuch), this volume is a go-to resource for ant pastor and serious Bible student. It is aimed at supplementing a traditional commentary that seeks to pay close attention...