THREAD: Daniel, Fun with Numbers, & Podcasts

Daniel is a man with a keen interest in names & numbers, so the number of times he uses certain names is significant.

He connects Babylon’s rulers with the number four, and Israel’s nobility with the number five, as shown below, …which is no coincidence.

For Daniel, the future of the Gentile world can be summed up in the reigns of four distinct kingdoms, in which Babylon’s rulers are bound up.

And these kingdoms, Daniel says, will ultimately be replaced by a fifth kingdom—a heavenly kingdom—,…

THREAD: Theology in Syntax (🧵)

Ephesians 1.3–10 is a majestic statement. It opens in the heavenly realms, before the foundation of the world, and concludes in the fulness of time, with all things in heaven and earth united in Christ—a grand sweep of divine history. It is an awesome and extraordinary declaration of God’s plans. And its syntax matches its message.

THREAD: Job 28—A Journey into the Mines

The text of Job 28 is a beautiful composition. It reveals important truths about the nature of wisdom and at the same time paints an exquisite picture of the book of Job’s central theme. For a brief intro to the book, see below:

https://x.com/JamesBejon/status/1814292780971163976

THREAD: Job the Righteous Sufferer

The Biblical narrative contains numerous examples of ‘righteous sufferers’—men who suffer not as a result of their own sin, but because of and to some extent *for* the benefit of others.

Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah—the list goes on. The most dramatic OT example of a righteous sufferer, however, is surely Job.

THREAD: The Trinity in Creation

Scripture opens with an account of a triune God who creates the heavens and earth over the course of a seven-day week.

What’s the connection between these numbers? Could a triune God have created the world over any period of time he chose? No doubt he could. But a sevenfold week seems particularly apt. Here’s why.

<SCARLET THREAD>
Blood in the Biblical Narrative

As Christians, it’s natural for us to associate bloodshed with redemption. In light of the Gospel, the idea seems intuitive.

That bloodshed can bring about redemption, however, is an unusual idea,… …which is revealed to us *gradually* as the Biblical narrative unfolds.

THREAD: Joseph, Jesus, & the Descent to Egypt

Joseph is a well known type/picture of Christ, so it’s natural for us (as Christians) to want us to map his experiences directly onto Jesus’s, all of which is well and good… …But we can learn a great deal from a contemplation of Joseph’s life in its original (OT) context. For a start, let’s have a think about Genesis’s general flow.

🧵 THREAD

The text of Mark 2.26 has caused quite a few folk quite a few problems.

Jesus seems to have thought David took the showbread from the sanctuary when Abiathar was the high priest, but the text of Samuel suggests he did it on Abimelech’s watch.

What’s gone wrong here? Well, first of all, we need to consider a couple of relevant historical questions.

► THREAD (🧵)

► Cleanness, Holiness, & Forbidden Mixtures: Some Thoughts

(The-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter seems as good a place for them as any.) The Levitical system views the world in terms of four basic categories:

► clean,
► unclean,
► common,
► holy.

These are often thought of in terms of a three-tier hierarchy (with ‘unclean’ omitted for some reason),

i.e., ‘common’ ⇒ ‘clean’ ⇒ ‘holy’,

THREAD (🧵): Who exactly was Jeremiah?

Well, we’re told three main things about him in his prophecies’ first two verses:

🔹 he was a priest;
🔹 he lived in Anathoth; and
🔹 he was the son of a certain Hilkiah.

Below, we’ll consider these facts in a bit more detail. Let’s start with Anathoth.

Anathoth wasn’t just any old city; it was a highly significant one.

It was allotted to the line of Aaron, i.e., the line of Israel’s high priest (Josh. 21.13ff.).

As a result, it was where Eli lived.

🧵 THREAD:

Keen to tackle the big questions of the day, I wondered if some thoughts on the thorny matter of hedgehog words in Scripture might be in order (with thanks to the Christmas card below for inspiration). Modern-day Arabic dialects have quite an array of words for the hedgehog,

🧵: Sometimes animals have more sense than both men and angels.

Balaam’s donkey could see what the great seer couldn’t (Num. 22).

… Two wayward priests carried the ark into battle and lost it, but a couple of well-directed cows brought it back home. Unlike the priests, ‘they turned neither to the right nor the left’ (I Sam. 6.12).

NOTE: In Revelation 4, John is taken into heaven’s throne-room.

The appearance of the one seated there is compared to ‘jasper’ and ‘carnelain’ (σαρδιον), and around the throne is an ‘emerald’ rainbow.

Why these gemstones in particular? Well, the names of the twelve tribes are engraved on the high priest’s ephod in order of birth (Exod. 28.10),

so it would make sense to take the twelve gemstones on the high-priest’s breastplate to have been arranged similarly.

THREAD: The Chronicler’s Theology

Paul views Israel’s temple as an essentially human structure, fulfilled in believers on earth as they worship the God of heaven.

Yet Paul’s theology isn’t an NT innovation; it’s rooted in the Hebrew Bible, most particularly in Chronicles. Chronicles is few people’s favourite book.

The index to Walter Moberley’s ‘Old Testament Theology’ contains over 600 OT references, only two of which come from the book of Chronicles,

and neither of them has anything to do with its genealogical material.

THREAD: Easter, Esther, & the Third Day

In and through Jesus’ resurrection, the third day is associated with new life.

But the association of life with a third day isn’t a New Testament innovation; it’s deeply engrained in the Biblical narrative. In the very first chapter of Scripture, on the third day of Creation week, land emerges from the world’s watery depths—from a world full of raw potential and yet devoid of actual life.

Grass springs up from the earth, followed by fruit trees.

🧵 THREAD: Elijah, Some Patronyms, and an Egyptian Mongoose

For the details, scroll down. ⤵ In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is told to anoint three different folk (1 Kgs. 19.16ff.).

One of them is ‘Jehu the son of Nimshi’,

whose name is worthy of attention.

🧵 THREAD: Into the Christmas Narratives Again…

TITLE: The Shepherds, the Manger, the River Chebar, and the Siege of Jerusalem

As the time for nativity sermons draws near, may I suggest a reconsideration of the sometimes overlooked connections between Luke and Ezekiel 1–11? One of the primary themes of Luke’s birth narrative(s) is the return of God’s presence and glory to his Temple.

That theme is brought to our attention by Luke at in at least three different ways.

➡️ First, by means of his description of Mary’s pregnancy.

🧵 THREAD: Ezra’s clans, the Jubilee, and 153 Fish.

Exegesis by numbers.

Image by A. Levin. Ezra 2’s list of clans deserves serious attention.

Consider, for a start, some of its numerical properties:

➡️ It begins with the classic introduction to Biblical lists of people, viz. ‘Now these...’ (וְאֵלֶּה), which has a gematrial value of 42.

🧵 Lamentations is a book of pain & sorrow.

Yet amidst its pain, somehow, is beauty,

& its sorrow is underlain by hope, which briefly (& triumphantly) rises to the surface.

Moreover, the book’s lament provides us with an exquisite picture of the work and woes of the Messiah. One of the most important features to grasp in an analysis of Jeremiah’s lament is its direction of travel.

🧵 THREAD: Daniel and the Prayer of Nabonidus

THE QUESTION: Who borrowed what from whom? In 1948, a text known as ‘The Prayer of Nabonidus’ was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It’s pretty short (a hundred words or so) and badly damaged,

but the details below at least can be made out.

THREAD: Jesus’ Two Genealogies

Why two?

Why genealogies at all?

And what if we don’t know the answers?

For a few thoughts on the matter, please scroll down.

#GodIsInTheDetails Bart Ehrman says genealogies aren’t among most people’s favourite passages in Scripture.

He’s probably right (though there’s time for that to change: Eph. 4.11ff.).