Author: Dr. Russ Bowers

  • Better Than Justice

    The adjective epieikēs (used 5x in the NT) and noun epieikeia (2x) mean “forbearing, lenient, conciliatory, gentle.” Some people insist on standing up for every last bit of their legal […]

  • The Back Page – Finals

    And it came to pass early on the first day of the last week of the semester, that there arose a multitude smiting their books and wailing. There was much […]

  • The Back Page – Water

    H2O has unique properties that allow life to thrive. The angle between its two hydrogen atoms is 105°, giving each molecule a slight negative charge (δ– in the above illustration) […]

  • The Back Page – Today

    It was as if I had stepped back in time. For some reason, yesterday’s green forsythias had re-donned their yellow. Tree twigs sported last month’s buds. What was going on? […]

  • The Back Page – Satan

    “There is no greater disaster than to underestimate the enemy.” The Hebrew word śāṭān means “adversary.” When Solomon sinned, God raised up Hadad of Edom as śāṭān—a political/military opponent. When […]

  • The Back Page – Thermometers and Thermostats

    What wonderful Greek words are “thermometer” and “thermostat”! Thermē is “heat.” Psalm 19:6 —“[The sun’s] rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end; […]

  • The Back Page -Conundrums/Conundra

    Light acts like a wave, but also like a particle. How can it do both? Hard to understand, but we tend to use light anyway. The Bible asserts that God […]

  • The Back Page – Easter and Butterflies

    Unless we knew better, we would suspect no relationship between the above insects. But they are the same because of this: The monarch caterpillar feasts on milkweed leaves for two […]

  • The Back Page – Becoming God’s Book

    We consider the Bible to be God’s book. It is, but the Bible is not the only writing God has authored … or is authoring. In Paul’s day, before internet […]

  • The Back Page – A Metonymy

    Like any good literature, the Bible uses figures of speech. One is “metonymy of container for contents.” In this figure, the word for a container of some kind is written, […]