Jeremy Thompson

Category: Old Testament Study

  • Ezra 9-10 – The Context of Today's Reading Makes it a Tough One

    Today’s lectionary reading is definitely part of one of my least favorite Old Testament passages.  If you heard the passage from the lectionary you probably would wonder why.  The reading is Ezra 9.5-9, which reads as follows: At the time of the evening sacrifice, I, Ezra, rose in my wretchedness, and with cloak and mantle…

  • A Feature I Like in English Textual Notes

    I was reading in Jeremiah 1 today, and I noticed a feature that I like in my Hebrew-English Tanakh. Word plays are often marked in notes.  For instance, there is a word play between shaqed “almond tree” and shoqed “watchful” (their translation) in Jeremiah 1.11 & 12 that is marked.  So, I looked ahead into…

  • The Celebration of Passover in Ezra

    In today’s lectionary reading in Ezra 6, the people celebrate the Passover.  This is somewhat significant as according the Bible Background Commentary on the Old Testament there has been no mention of the Passover celebration since the time of Josiah which was more than 100 years earlier.  This is potentially an example of the idea…

  • Name Changes in the Bible

    Going to be teaching on Genesis 32 tonight where Jacob’s name is changed to Israel.  And, I just started trying to recall some significant name changes in the Bible off the top of my head for illustration purposes.  Here goes: Abram -> Abraham Sarai -> Sarah Jacob -> Israel Joseph -> Zaphenath-paneah Ben-Oni -> Benjamin…

  • Daniel McClellan on Monotheism and Other Gods in the Hebrew Bible

    I have posted a number of times in the past about examples of henotheism in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.  HERE is a post by Daniel McClellan in which he goes into a significant amount of detail on the topic.  I am one who was trained in the manner of Wiggins who he cites in the…

  • Terence E. Fretheim on God and Violence in the Old Testament

    HERE is a link to a helpful article by Terence E. Fretheim in Word and World (Vo1. 24.1, 2004) on “God and Violence in the Old Testament.”  I will try to summarize Fretheim’s points the best that I can: Violence is both an Old Testament and New Testament phenomenon.  I recommend checking out the footnotes…

  • Adding Some Topical Pages to the Site

    I’m adding some topical pages to the site for those who might want to browse in that manner.  Just getting started with it, but I hope it is a help to some users.  So far, I’ve got a few links up on these pages The Old Testament (General), Books About the Old Testament, The Books…

  • Chris Brady on "Myth"

    I will not be blogging anything of my own today considering I am working on my dissertation.  However, I did not want to leave you without any food for thought for today.  HERE is a link to a post by Chris Brady on his reasoning for not using the term “myth” in his series on…

  • Chris Brady on The Character of God in Genesis 1

    HERE is a post by Chris Brady on the character of God in Genesis 1 that is well worth a read.  My favorite quote from the post is: Given that God is the subject of almost every verb in the opening creation story of Genesis it is surprising that God is never provided with any…

  • Fundamentalism and Anachronism at Desiring God

    Yesterday there was a post on the Desiring God blog about “boring” passages in the Bible (why they put boring in quotes I don’t know; I would just call them boring), especially the Pentateuch.  There is so much wrong with the particular details of this post that it is difficult to really know where to…