Bøger af Eric Ortlund

One of the most challenging passages in the Old Testament book of Job comes in the Lord's second speech (40-41). The characters and the reader have waited a long time for the Lord to speak--only to read what is traditionally interpreted as a long description of a hippopotamus and crocodile (Behemoth and Leviathan). The stakes are very high: is God right to run the world in such a way that allows such terrible suffering for one of his most loyal servants? Is Job right to keep trusting God in the midst of much criticism? But it is difficult for modern readers to avoid a sense of frustrating anticlimax as the book ends. Eric Ortlund argues that Behemoth and Leviathan are better understood as symbols of cosmic chaos and evil--that a supernatural interpretation fits better exegetically within the book of Job and within Job's ancient Middle Eastern context. It also helps modern readers to appreciate the satisfying climax the narrator intended for the book: in describing Behemoth and Leviathan, God is directly engaging with Job's complaint about divine justice, implying to Job that he understands the evil at loose in his creation better than Job does, is in control of it, and will one day destroy it. In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Ortlund considers different interpretations of the Lord's second speech and their potential exegetical and pastoral weaknesses. He shows how a supernatural interpretation of Behemoth and Leviathan puts modern readers in a position to appreciate the reward of Job's faith (and ours) as we endure in trusting God while living in an unredeemed creation. Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.

In Suffering Wisely and Well, Eric Ortlund explores different types of trials throughout Scripture, particularly the story of Job, revealing the spiritual purpose for pain and reassuring readers with God's promise of restoration.

Not just your garden-variety zombie apocalypse... "It was a week ago when it happened. Exactly a week when I heard the stomping on the front porch. I remember it sounded like someone was drunk. I opened the door and it was my neighbor. She lunged at me." Oz, a former professor driven to the brink of madness by a tragedy he cannot face, begins to notice that the people around him are acting strangely. They're eating each other. And they're scraping at his door. Fleeing south, Oz and a motley crew of survivors begin to notice that this isn't the zombie apocalypse they'd seen in countless movies and books. These creatures seem somehow 'closer' to the Earth, yet, perversely, somehow deader, less human, than even zombies are meant to be. The creatures are transfixed by the Sun, and they transform, their faces peeling back in short tentacles until they uncannily resemble flowers. And these zombies can't be stopped. Hack off a limb or a head and it re-joins or just grows back, like the toughest plants. The Dead have a global leader, a purpose - beyond that of just eating any remaining humans. And the seven survivors, led reluctantly by Oz, discover that they have a central role to play in the macabre new order of 'life' on Earth. Dead Petals is a different species of zombie tale. Apocalypse, Rapture and the transformation of reality, all sprouting from the same seed.

This work applies insights from recent work in metaphor theory and myth theory to argue that this traditional interpretation of poetic theophanic imagery is mistaken, and that these texts make better exegetical sense when understood against the background of the ANE myth of the defeat of chaos.

This 12-week study invites us to take an honest look at the agony and pain experienced by Job, which are immediately relevant in many ways to the suffering we all experience while on earth.