Bible Review, August 1991
Features
When Abraham sends his concubine Hagar and their son Ishmael into the “wilderness of Beersheba” (Genesis 21:14), he hangs from Hagar’s shoulder “a skin of water.” In Sinai and the Negev, Bedouin shepherdesses today still carry to pasture the same type of container, made from the skin of a butchered goat, because its […]
The date was December 2, 1947, four days after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and Arab state. Arab mobs in Syria were once again looting, burning, murdering and raping local Jews under the aegis of their, government’s anti-Zionism campaign. Similar pogroms had been staged throughout the country […]
Did the ancient Israelite judge and warrior Jephthah actually kill his own daughter? Perhaps rashly, he vowed to sacrifice as a burnt offering “whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return” if the Lord would only grant him a victory over the Ammonites (Judges 11:30–31).1 He […]
Mark, the earliest and the shortest of the Gospels, begins with John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River (Mark 1:9). As Jesus emerges from the water, Mark tells us, Jesus sees the “heavens torn open” (schizomenous tous ouranous) (Mark 1:10). The Spirit then descends upon Jesus, like a dove (Mark 1:10). A voice calls […]