“The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it? I, the Lord, examine the mind, I test the heart to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve.” (Jeremiah 17:9-10)
We’ve come to the heart of the matter. Hang in there. We’re going to cover a lot.
The Heart
The root of the Subdue and Rule Mandate’s corruption was the human heart turning from God.
When the human heart abandoned covenant loyalty to God for self-allegiance, the Lord’s vice-regents exercised their God-given dominion independently of their divine King. From then on, that one act of rebellious hearts redirected every person’s drive for control.
Why is the root of the Subdue and Rule Mandate’s corruption due to the human heart turning from God? Because the “heart” represents the whole person and reflects our innermost being into which the Mandate is bound.
The biblical idea of the human heart is more than just an organ that pumps lifeblood throughout the human body or as the seat of our feelings. The concept of our “heart” (Heb. lev, levav) in Hebraic thinking involves many facets of a person’s whole and united being (Wilson). Dumbrell writes, “heart in the psychology of the Old Testament (is) comprehensive of all inward personal states. Most frequently, it is used of thought processes as directive of the total attitude and the actions stemming from them. It can be used also for moral awareness in the sense of conscience, and thus of a responsibility for personal decisions and their implementation.” (italics author).
The heart represents our “core,” but it also includes other areas such as “physical being, personality, emotions, intellect, will, and relationship with God” (Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary). Interestingly, for you Bible geeks, the kidneys (Heb. kilyah, Gr. nephros) were also regarded as the source of our emotions and affections (classic.net.bible.org), thus assigning the thoughts and will more to the heart (Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary). The soul (Heb. nefesh) also represents the inner person as a whole, but primarily as the body’s “life force or the inner life of the person, encompassing desires and emotions” (Ibid.).
While there is overlap regarding the source of the various facets of our being, the point is that we’re regarded as an undivided, unified whole guided primarily by our heart, the core of our being. Proverbs says the heart reveals the inner person. “As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person” (Proverbs 27:19). In other words, our heart is the sum of our “physical being, emotions, intellect, will, and relationship with God” (Ibid.) reveals to the world who we truly are.
God has a lot to say regarding the human heart and how it affects our relationship with Him. When God addresses a person’s heart, He’s addressing the entire person, and the heart becomes the locus of God’s work within them (Ibid.). The heart is the point of God’s back-and-forth interaction with people. Israel was commanded to “love the Lord your God with all your heart (levav) and with all your being (nefesh) and with all your might (me’od)” (Deuteronomy 6:5) (Alter, The Five Books of Moses). In other words, the Israelites were commanded to be entirely committed to their divine King with their entire being, their life force, and what they produced with their being, i.e., their resources (Rabbi Nosson Schernman, The Chumash, ArtScroll Series).
Just as Israel was commanded to love the Lord with everything they were and possessed, this also applies to our Subdue and Rule Mandate as a part of God’s “Operating System” that He God installed within human beings at the beginning. God’s intent was for every person to commit themselves to exercise dominion on His behalf only according to His moral laws.
When the Bible speaks of a person’s heart turning away from God, it means they have made a directional change with their whole being, not just their thoughts or feelings (1 Samuel 15:11; 2 Chronicles 29:6; Psalms 53:3; cf. Romans 3:12). Since Hebraic thinking regards a person as a unified whole, there’s no compartmentalizing of the human being. What affects the “heart” affects the entirety of a person’s interior life and ultimately manifests in their outward actions. Therefore, the person’s heart becomes the center of the Lord’s concern and attention.
The Bible’s many references to the heart give us insight into the Subdue and Rule Mandate and how it’s been corrupted by the rebellious human heart at the Fall. The Bible also tells us why the heart’s restoration, God’s renewal of the inner person, is the first crucial step to restoring the Mandate to its uncorrupted, proper use.
The purpose of the Creation covenant was to provide a bond of trust between covenant partners, God and His people, and a basic framework to protect that relationship. God intended our original state to be of trust and complete openness to Him. The Man and Woman’s “naked and unashamed” state shows humanity’s transparency to God at first. Psalms 62:8 reflects God’s desired heart/trust connection when it says, “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before him. God is our refuge.” A heart turned from God indicates distrust of Him and trust in something else, primarily the self or other people or things. Jeremiah wrote, “This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind. He makes human flesh his strength, and his heart turns from the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5).
After God’s vice-regents turned from Him, the Man and Woman immediately attempted to hide their changed hearts and inner beings from God by “covering themselves” and hiding from Him (Genesis 3:7-8). However, no covering or distance can keep the all-seeing God from knowing who we truly are, for He alone can look upon the heart. When Samuel searched for Israel’s second king, the Lord told him not to judge by outward appearances. The heart, the inner person with their mind and will, and their openness to Him is what matters to God. “Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). The fact that David had a heart after God was what qualified him to become the Lord’s king and vice-regent of Israel, exercising God’s dominion over His people. Solomon later affirmed God’s ability to peer into the inner man and rightly discern the heart. “May you hear in heaven, your dwelling place, and may you forgive, act, and give to everyone according to all their ways, since you know each heart, for you alone know every human heart” (1 Kings 8:39).
Scripture shows that God focuses on the state of a person’s heart. Is it rightly aligned with Him or not? Three times in the Hebrew scriptures, God calls for His people to circumcise their hearts (Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4). Circumcision in the light of Abraham’s covenant was “an indicator of divine ownership” and a sign of “covenant inclusion” (Erickson). Abraham’s submission to circumcision showed that he recognized his sovereign God “owned” him via the covenant. Abraham’s circumcision also revealed his trustful commitment to the terms of God’s one-sided grant covenant with him, which was similar to the Creation grant covenant God made with the Man and Woman.
Biblically, circumcision outwardly shows an inward commitment (heart) to God, and Abraham’s commitment to God was demonstrated through his flesh and obedient actions. Circumcision of the “heart” means a commitment to living life according to God’s commands and moral standards. Just as an uncircumcised heart is revealed through evil deeds, a circumcised heart is proclaimed through righteous deeds.
A fascinating aspect of Abraham’s physical circumcision (Genesis 17:24) is that it immediately preceded God’s promise of Abraham’s “exceeding fruitfulness” (Genesis 17:6) via the restoration of Sarah’s reproductive ability leading up to Isaac’s birth a year later (Genesis 21:2). Given the length of human gestation, there were only three-months between Abraham’s circumcision and Sarah’s conception.
When God tells us to circumcise our hearts, He’s asking us to remove anything that hinders His work in our lives, anything that renders us indifferent or unresponsive toward Him, and to re-establish a restored sensitivity to His work in their “heart” or inner person (Alter). According to the idea that circumcision precedes fruitfulness, removing any impediment between you and God often results in Him making your life more fruitful. That sounds like the pruning lesson Jesus taught His disciples (John 15:1-2).
Note that God’s work in Abraham restored the couple’s reproductive ability (Genesis 21:2). God also recognized Abraham’s dedication to teaching his household to obey God, “For I have chosen him so that he will command his children and his house after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just” (Genesis 18:19, italics author). Interestingly, these are two aspects of the original Creation covenant (reproduce/do things God’s way only). Abraham and Sarah could “be fruitful and multiply” by God’s power, while Abraham taught his household only to live God’s way.
Abraham is the prototype of a group of people who would eventually receive the reign of God in their lives and who could rule themselves and their world according to God’s ways. Circumcision of the heart is God’s call for us to repent after our heart has become calloused, desensitized to God, indifferent to His word, rebellious to His commands, and turned, seeking our way. God works with us to remove the impediment within us (our rebellion and resistance) and restore us to fruitful, righteous living after Abraham’s example.
Since the heart represents our inner being, then how it’s oriented will have a profound effect on how we follow the Lord’s word or not. God’s word rightly assesses our heart toward Him (Hebrews 4:12). Therefore, God must test and try our hearts, not that He’s unaware of our inward state, but for us to see what He sees, for “…the heart (lev) is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it? I, the Lord, examine the mind (lev), I test the heart (kilyah) to give to each according to his way, according to what his actions deserve” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
The Fall painfully shows us that the heart is easily deceived. Wise people ask God to help them rightly discern their inward condition. “Test me, Lord, and try me; examine my heart and mind” (Psalms 26:2). Testing reinforces our relationship with God and weighs our covenant faithfulness, whether we comply with the Lord’s covenant terms or not. This process is crucial since the heart is the storehouse of God’s moral law (Romans 2:15) and the source of life (Proverbs 4:23). A tender, responsive, circumcised heart motivates us to heed and obey the Lord. A stony, unresponsive, and resistant uncircumcised heart moves us to ignore and disobey Him. In short, we produce according to our heart’s condition, either defilement or fruitfulness (Matthew 12:34-35). Since the Subdue and Rule Mandate is inherently part of our being, how our heart is turned toward or away from God becomes critical in how we exercise subduing and ruling within our world and sphere of influence.
The heart represents covenant loyalty, and the heart’s attitude toward a covenant partner affects covenant faithfulness. The command to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” is covenant language about faithful allegiance. In Western terms, people often think of love as an emotion. However, “love” in covenant terms means loyalty, demonstrated by faithfulness to the covenant partner by upholding the covenant terms. The call to “love” is a call to show allegiance by obeying the covenant’s terms. The suzerain-vassal covenant demands the vassal king’s absolute loyalty to the suzerain king. Adherence to covenant terms was crucial and carried severe repercussions if broken. “The disloyal vassal would be stripped of his throne, sometimes his land grant, and depending on how severe or long-lived the rebellion, the vassal state might be annihilated and the populace exiled” (Richter), which clearly describes what happened to the Man and Woman when they rebelled against their divine King.
Covenant faithfulness is not what one thinks or feels about a covenant’s terms, and only faithfully carrying out the covenant terms matters. As part of the Creation covenant’s three-fold commands, the Subdue and Rule Mandate was to be accomplished with the couple’s entire being strictly guided by God’s moral compass.
We see this unbreakable link between the heart and proven faithfulness throughout scripture. God keeps covenant with those who are demonstrably loyal to Him. God calls His covenant partners to walk before Him with all their hearts, to obey Him with all they are and have (1 Kings 8:23; 2 Chronicles 6:14). An undivided and right heart, singular loyalty, is required to execute God’s commands properly (1 Chronicles 29:19). Our hearts can’t serve two masters simultaneously (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13). The king we obey shows which sovereign we love (obey) or despise (disobey).
God desires His people to have an undivided heart so He could bless and prosper them (Deuteronomy 5:29). But following the change since the Fall, we continually reject our Creator King (Psalms 78:8). We embrace ourselves as sovereign, reflecting hearts that have rebelled and turned away from our divine King in covenant betrayal, having grown callous and needing circumcision, and ultimately ignore or deliberately break God’s covenant terms (His Law) with impunity.
But while humanity is born with a tendency to rebel against God, not all people have been absolute rebels. There have been some who set examples of covenant loyalty. King David and King Josiah were commended for such hearts (1 Kings 14:8; 2 Kings 23:25). In 1 Kings 13:13-14, King Saul was harshly rebuked for his wayward heart, shown by his refusal to keep the Lord’s commands. God was looking for a man who could properly exercise dominion over God’s people because his heart was loyal to God and aligned with His. David’s example showed what God desires – a heart set upon Him to follow His ways as He works His plan for worldwide redemption.
Because our heart is our rudder for covenant faithfulness, God tests our heart (Proverbs 17:3). Only He can precisely know what’s in our heart, rewarding or disciplining us appropriately (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Our heart guides our actions, and our actions reveal our heart. Heart tests are great opportunities for us as God’s covenant partners to prove our loyalty in concrete ways regarding what to do or not do according to God’s commands.
The Man and Woman’s heart test was whether they would choose to exercise dominion against God’s command by assuming what didn’t belong to them – autonomous moral agency. They chose poorly, and rather than trust God, they decided to determine for themselves what was right or wrong.
For the people of Israel, their loyal heart test came during Moses’ long mountaintop delay at Sinai. By not trusting God, the Israelites broke the covenant terms they had just sealed with their Sovereign and embraced idolatry with the Golden Calf (Exodus 32). God’s punishment fit the crime. For thirty-nine years, God tested and trained His people to trust Him by showing how genuinely dependent upon Him they were to be (“to humble you”), how He would supply everything they needed (“and test you”), and reveal their loyalty toward Him (Deuteronomy 8:2). For the Israelites, hearts set on covenant obedience would be critical after God placed them in their “Eden,” the Promised Land, where they would again be tested by their desires when faced with new difficulties and temptations. As with the First Couple, God wanted Israel to loyally exercise their Subdue and Rule Mandate over their land grant His way while resisting the urge for disloyal autonomy. Therefore, God worked on their hearts as His primary focus.
The wise person welcomes a heart test from God to prove their faithfulness (Psalms 26:2; 139:23). Remarkably, even if a person’s way is misaligned with the letter of God’s law, their heart can vindicate them (Proverbs 21:2; Romans 2:14-15). Even though the people of King Hezekiah’s day were ritually unclean when they ate the Passover in the second month, God forgave their violation and healed the people for their whole-hearted recommitment to Him (2 Chronicles 30:20).
God warns us to guard our hearts since covenant violations begin within our thoughts and desires, eventually causing our hearts to turn from His will (Deuteronomy 29:18; 1 Kings 11:3, 4, 9; Psalms 95:10). As our heart turns, so we turn. The more we turn away from our relationship with God, the less we follow God’s ways (Psalms 95:10), resulting in less godly behavior. “In Hebrew thought, the essence of true godliness is tied primarily to a relationship, not to a creed. … Sin ruptures that relationship, but repentance brings forgiveness and restoration to fellowship” (Wilson).
When the Man and Woman turned away from God, their exercise of the Subdue and Rule Mandate became less godly and more driven by human thoughts and desires. But even at that early stage of rebellion, God provided a way to cover their violation (Genesis 3:21; Hebrews 9:22; Leviticus 17:11 – clothing made from animal skins; shed blood) and renewed their relationship, albeit separated from God because of their violation.
But even if a person violates the covenant terms, every covenant has a renewal and reinstatement clause providing a way for the offending partner to be forgiven for their violation and fully reinstate the covenant relationship. Noah’s obedience reinstated the original covenant (Genesis 9:9, 11). Israel’s repentance brought forgiveness and reinstatement for their covenant betrayal (Leviticus 26:40-45; Deuteronomy 30:1-10). And the New Covenant’s renewal and reinstatement are through the ongoing efficacy of Jesus’ sacrifice (1 John 1:8-9).
Even though humanity has repeatedly broken faith with our Creator, the Lord refuses to turn His back on us. From the beginning, the renewal/reinstatement clause has remained, ready to be repeatedly accessed until God restores all things.
The complete restoration of His relationship with humanity is God’s goal (Revelation 21:3). It’s always been about our relationship with God. Such a relationship restoration will re-establish the proper exercise of the Subdue and Rule Mandate as God intended. So how do we prevent our hearts from turning from God, resulting in the subsequent abuse of the dominion drive?
God’s word, the heart’s governor, and guard rail
God’s word itself is the governor and guardrail for our hearts. God’s word is meant to control and guide us. God’s word was active in Eden as the framework within which the rule and reproduce commands were to be rightly exercised. McDurmon points out, “But surely God’s moral law existed in its fullness in Adam’s heart from the beginning, even if it had not been revealed propositionally to his knowledge.” King David voiced how vital God’s word was as the sole guide for the heart in his magnificent psalm about God’s Torah (Psalms 119:11, 34, 36, 58, 69, 70, 80, 111, 145, 161).
Isaiah reveals that knowledge of righteousness comes from a heart (a person’s being) infused with God’s word. “Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my instruction:” (Isaiah 51:7, italics author). Knowledge of righteousness comes from God’s word embedded in our being. God’s word spells out the terms of how we should show covenant commitment and marks out the boundaries between faithfulness and unfaithfulness, allegiance or betrayal, loyalty or disloyalty, God’s way or humanity’s way. For us to properly exercise God’s Subdue and Rule Mandate, our hearts must know God’s word, be aligned with God’s word, and know how God would have us exercise dominion according to Himself.
God intended humanity to take their cues from Him alone. God’s word is a “yoke” upon us. Just as a physical yoke governs and guides an ox as it pulls the plow, ensuring a straight furrow, the metaphorical yoke of God’s word guides us along a straight and moral path through life. In the case of the Subdue and Rule Mandate, God’s word is essential as a yoke to guide us as we seek to control and direct our dominion drive, our urge to bring things under control and keep it that way (Matthew 11:29-30). The picture of a yoke is often used in the Bible to describe a person or nation under another’s dominion (see Solomon, 2 Chronicles 10:4, and Babylon, Jeremiah 28:14). Likewise, the yoke of God’s word upon us shows our submission to His dominion over our lives. This yoke of God’s dominion is what the Man and Woman threw off when they chose to pursue their drives autonomously. This same yoke of God, His commands, needs to be reinstalled on the human heart for the Subdue and Rule Mandate to be restored to its proper function.
Therefore, the human heart is ground zero for God’s restoration work in humanity to bring us all back into subjection to His sovereign rule.
As stated above, our hearts guide our actions, and our actions reveal our hearts. Therefore, God’s ultimate fix for properly exercising the Subdue and Rule Mandate must begin with the heart. This fix must include fixing God’s word into our hearts with the added motivation toward covenant obedience to truly “love” the Lord with all we are. Only then can the dominion drive be appropriately used.
The Couple had a heart to be like God (their desire), not a heart “after” God (what God desires), and the fire from a prone-to-rebel heart now fuels every person’s drive for dominion. The Subdue and Rule Mandate’s corruption came via a fatal “heart” attack that caused us to die to God and His commands.
As I pointed out before, the Adversary diminished God and His word in the Woman’s mind. Satan implied equality with God was something that could be grasped if the Couple would just exercise dominion over their lives in place of God’s dominion. The Woman’s fence around God’s command (the “or touch it” man-made rule) was too low to prevent covenant violation precisely because it was not God’s word. A low fence is easily jumped. Finally, Satan motivated their disobedience by inflaming the desires of the Woman’s heart – the desire to enjoy (the lust of the flesh, “she saw that it was good for food”), the desire to obtain (the lust of the eyes, “delightful to look at”), and the desire to achieve (the pride of life, “desirable for obtaining wisdom”) (Genesis 3:6) (Erickson, on 1 John 2:16-17). These lusts could only be satisfied by deploying autonomous dominion, so the Couple “died” of heart failure.
The Subdue and Rule Mandate’s corruption came from the couple’s heart to be like God (seeking covenant parity with a superior partner) and not having a heart after God (covenant disloyalty). Once the autonomy line was breached, their now unrestrained hearts kicked the desire for dominion into overdrive but unyoked from God’s guidelines. Instead of exercising dominion according to God’s will, human dominion became driven by the whims of a limited and morally corrupt inner being, guided by the human desires to enjoy, obtain, and achieve for personal satisfaction.
But what might be the crux of the couple’s decision to throw off God’s dominion over their lives in favor of autonomous self-rule? Was it just motivation from the three lusts that led them to violate God’s covenant? Or perhaps there was a deeper motivation, a gift from God but used in a way God never intended? Why the desire for self-dominion? Here’s my proposal.
The motive for self-dominion, #1: subdue and rule the things made of adamah
The Man was formed from the earth’s ground (adamah, Gen. 2:7). Next, the Woman was formed from the repurposed material from which the Man was made. Therefore, she shared the Man’s source material, adamah. Likewise, the animal kingdom was formed from the adamah (Genesis 2:19), and plant life grew from the adamah. Therefore, God created a whole world from which everything in it was related to the source material. Then God commanded the Couple to subdue and rule the earth (Heb. eretz) and all the things that were formed from or are a part of it, animate and in animate.
Only two things formed from the earth were not included within the “subdue and rule the earth and all living creatures” command – the Man and Woman. God did not create them to subdue and rule each other, although they were of the same “stuff” as everything else. They were made to subdue and rule God’s planet as co-equal, corresponding co-rulers even though they were in the “things-comprised-of-adamah” category.
I propose that the Man’s and Woman’s decision to exercise dominion over themselves was driven by their dominion mandate directed at all the adamah-category things, only now it was redirected to include themselves and subsequently against one another. After all, they were more like their charges in physical nature than their Sovereign.
The motive for self-dominion, #2: subdue and rule all living creatures
It’s also a short shift from ruling all living creatures to ruling themselves as part of the earth’s “living creatures” category. The change from ruling earth’s living creatures to ruling human beings within the “earthly living creature” category would logically extend to exerting dominion over other human beings as earth’s living creatures.
But again, though humanity was a living creature formed from the ground (adamah), God never commanded the couple to rule over each other. Human beings were to function as co-rulers, shoulder to shoulder, as they carried out their dominion duties.
Exercising dominion requires making decisions. So, by whose authority are we to make dominion decisions, God’s or ours? How dominion/control is rightly exercised is determined by its ultimate authority. The only legitimate authority present at the beginning was God’s authority. The only authority by which humanity was allowed to exercise their God-given dominion was their God-given authority. By usurping God’s authority in their failed quest to be like God, they didn’t become like God but gods unto themselves.
Exercising dominion requires making decisions that affect everything within one’s domain. Our original domain was the earth and all living creatures. The Man demonstrated his authority over his delegated domain by naming the animals. When the woman was created, the Man called her “Woman,” not as an exercise of authority over her, but to recognize her source (“for she was taken from man”). Life in Eden for the Man and Woman was a shared “work and watch” life, deciding how to subdue and rule God’s domain, the world. However, when their hearts turned from God, their dominion drive followed. From then on, humanity would subdue and rule via decisions independent of God, which would now include exerting dominion over other people.
The battle begins: people dominating other people
Now that the Couple was wired to reproduce and rule but stuck in a state of willful self-determination and autonomy from God, the battle for dominance began.
The battle for dominion started first within the individual and then between the individual and the world around them. Judaism’s rabbis recognize the internal aspect of this battle and the struggle for dominance which shows whether a person is aligned with God or not. “The difference between the righteous and the wicked is defined in this way: ‘The wicked are under control of their heart (their evil impulse), but the righteous have their heart under their control’ (Genesis Rabbah 24:10); and to the question, ‘Who is mighty?’ the answer is given, ‘He who conquers his impulse’ (Aboth 4.1)” (Cohen). To rule the world and all living creatures formed from the ground (adamah) God’s way, one must first rule their own adamah, driven by their bodily desires and rebellious heart.
The check on our fallen human nature against the unlawful exercise of God’s dominion is the same thing that guided the “reproduce and rule” commands from the start, God’s will. The Rabbis recognize the importance of God’s word as that critical check.
“The Rabbis were under no delusion about the tyrannical power of this deep-rooted instinct…’ The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel, My children, I have created the evil impulse, and I have created the Torah as an antidote to it; if you occupy yourselves with Torah you will not be delivered into its power’ (Kiddushin 30b)” (Cohen). What the rabbis call the evil impulse is our fallen nature and urging of our rebellious heart. The power of the “un-dominioned” heart fights against God’s will, revealed through His teaching, guidance, and commands. The unrestrained heart can never be fully brought under control and managed until it’s restored to its place under God’s dominion.
The essence of the Creation covenant (and every other covenant in scripture for that matter) is choosing God’s dominion over self-dominion. The essence of God’s dominion is accepting and living according to God’s will.
But the Man and Woman would not, and neither do we, at least until we surrender ourselves to God and become born-again through Jesus’ sacrifice for us and the Holy Spirit’s transforming work.
Once the Couple chose to violate the primary command of the covenant, the other two commands continued, guided by a rebellious heart bent toward self-gratification. Henceforth, according to their wrecked moral compass, humanity would reproduce and rule their way. It was now up to people to determine how they wanted to control their world and woe to the person who gets in the way.
Finally, when humanity turned from God’s rule to self-rule, we wound up under Satan’s rule instead. He rules the world, yes, but not on his own. Since the Subdue and Rule Mandate was given to humanity, not Satan, God’s Adversary uses the Lord’s rebellious vice-regents as his puppets to exercise world domination. In short, Satan rules the world through those who are his willing agents because our fallen natures are in his grasp. Until something changed that freed people from Satan’s grasp to God’s grip, humanity would continue to reproduce and rule on their terms under satanic influence. This state of decay brought grave consequences to humankind, as we’ll see next.
Sources:
Cohen, A. Everyman’s Talmud.
Dumbrell, William J. Covenant and Creation, An Old Testament Covenant Theology.
Dumbrell, William J. The End of the Beginning, Revelations 21-22 and the Old Testament.
Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology.
McDurmon, Joel. Is There a Dominion Mandate? Discussion: The Dominion Mandate:
Yesterday, Today, and Forever.
Richter, Sandra L. The Epic of Eden, A Christian Entry into the Old Testament.
Schernman, Rabbi Nosson, et al. The Chumash, The ArtScroll Series
Wilson, Dr. Marvin R. Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith.
Pastor Jay Christianson
The Truth Barista, Frothy Thoughts