Bible Review, December 1989
Features
The Nine Commandments
The secret progress of Israel’s sins
Embedded in the sequence of books from Genesis through Kings is a hitherto unnoticed sequence of violations of the Ten Commandments, one by one, book by book, by the community of Israel, leading, in the end, to her Exile. I would like to suggest that this sequence...Read more ›
Did Paul Commit Suicide?
The question this article will explore may appear disturbing at first sight, and for good reason. Since Augustine’s time, the church has condemned suicide as a sin—a sin beyond redemption, just like apostasy and adultery. How then could Paul, the premier apostle of early Christianity, even have...Read more ›
The Hebrew Bible Contains the Oldest Surviving History
The extraordinary achievement of the Hebrew Bible as history is rarely remarked on, but it is worth considering. For the Hebrew Bible contains the oldest surviving historical work as such and perhaps the earliest history ever written. We tend not to appreciate this achievement because we simply...Read more ›
The Binding of Isaac
Rembrandt’s contrasting portraits
It is hard to believe that there are only 19 verses in chapter 22 of Genesis, the chapter that tells the story of the Binding of Isaac, or Akedah in Hebrew. More commentaries have been written on this chapter—by medievals and by moderns, by...Read more ›