Dr Paul Allen

The teaching of Scripture on the subject of human origins is foundational to the rest of the Bible. It is also vital to our understanding of who we are as humans in relationship to God and to the rest of creation. This should not be surprising, as every culture in history has had a set of origin stories that answer similar questions. The theory of evolution functions in this role for many modern people — as an explanatory story of origins rather than as a technical account of scientific processes. Did mankind gradually evolve from various lower life-forms, rising by a purely naturalistic process until finally reaching our present state (as taught by naturalistic evolution)? In that case, the biblical account of the creation of Adam and Eve is, at best, a figurative myth that may describe the human condition, but has no connection with actual events. This is the BioLogos position. Or was the slow onward and upward progress toward humanity steered by God and perhaps decisi...

It is not unreasonable to assume that the text of Jeremiah, as we have it, was in existence somewhere around 580 BC, with the possible exception of Jeremiah 52, which probably came later. (In fact, note Jer 51:64c, “The words of Jeremiah end here.”) But this does not mean that there is a chronological order to all the contents of this book. Chapters 36 and 45 are both dated “in the fourth year of Jehoiakim” (605/604 BC), but the intervening chapters, 37–44, report incidents that occurred in 586/7 BC and following. Two scrolls There still is the issue of the two scrolls. Clearly, chapter 36 tells how Jeremiah was ordered by Yahweh to prepare a scroll with “all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah, and all the [other] nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah until now” (Jer 36:2). Baruch, the son of Neriah, assisted Jeremiah in this task: “Baruch, at Jeremiah’s dictation, wrote in a scroll-book all the words of Yahweh which [Jerem...