Bible Review, April 2004
Features
Why Doesn’t God Answer Prayers?
How the First Christians Dealt with Divine Silence
We are told that God hears our prayers. Then why doesn’t he listen? The most consoling words in the New Testament are, “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7 = ...Read more ›
Caleb the Dog
How a Biblical Good Guy Got a Bad Name
It’s hard to imagine any parents calling their child Dog. But that’s just what the Bible tells us Jephunneh and his wife did: They named their son Caleb—from klb, the Hebrew root for “dog.” Is it just an unfortunate appellation? Or did the biblical authors have a...Read more ›
The Golden Calf
Made by Man...or God?
While Moses was up on Mt. Sinai receiving the first edition of the Ten Commandments, the people down below grew impatient and asked Aaron, Moses’ brother, to make them another god to lead them. Aaron instructed the people to rip off their gold earrings, which,...Read more ›
Is Psalm 45 an Erotic Poem?
You probably know the old joke about the psychiatrist who gave his patient a series of Rohrschach tests. The patient identified every single inkblot pattern as depicting a man and a woman copulating. The doctor then pronounced his official diagnosis: “You, sir, are obsessed with sex!” “But,...Read more ›
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Bible Books
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas