The foundation of the Bible and Christianity is the opening story of Genesis – about how God created the world- especially its claim that God created Adam and Eve as the parents of all humanity. If this opening account is wrong, the very foundation for believing the Bible is destroyed! But if this account of creation is the pillar of truth, why are the two opening chapters so contradictory? Or are they?
Jeremiah is the second of the ‘major’ Prophets after Isaiah. Like Isaiah, he prophesied events which were fulfilled within his lifetime and beyond. Most significantly, Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied about the coming Messiah and the new covenant this Messiah would usher in. From the opening three verses, which may have been written by Jeremiah, or may have been the result of Ezra’s later editing. These verses help us to date when Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry. His ministry would have begun when he was aged between 15 to 20. He would have begun around the time of the discovery of the Law during the thirteenth year of King Josiah’s reign which was around 629BC. This helps us to reckon his birth year as sometime around 649BC or so. We know that the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem as Jeremiah had prophesied they would, in 586 BC. This means that Jeremiah ministered around 45 to 50 years. He is particular significant for several reasons…
Almost without exception, preachers promote the idea that the Song of Solomon is loaded with sexually erotic symbolism and allegory that extols the joys of monogamous marriage. If this be true then it is completely out of step with the overall revelation of God’s story of redemption!
The story goes, according to some preachers, that Solomon sees a girl, falls in love, takes her, has his way with her and she is entirely complicit with this erotic liaison. The language, these preachers argue, is allegorical so as to show some decorum about what is usually not often talked about: the act of sex between a husband and his bride. I would like to debunk this myth and propose a different story that not only fits perfectly with the text but also the overall message of Scripture…