thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
The Pool of Bethesda – model in the Israel Museum Picture taken by deror avi on 18th August 2006 (Wikipedia) Fifty years ago, when I was a young christian, there was a clear division in New Testament studies between scholars who defended historic christianity and more secular scholars who took an extremely critical view of […]
The New Testament gives us a lot of information about Jesus, but there aren’t many other historical references to Jesus in the first century to support the New Testament information. Some sceptics claim this indicates Jesus was an invention or a legend. So there has always been great interest in two references in the writings […]
More than half a century ago, christian apologist CS Lewis presented a simple argument for belief in the divinity of Jesus. The argument wasn’t original to him, but it went like this. We cannot think of Jesus as merely a good moral teacher for good moral teachers don’t claim to be the son of God. […]
When expert historians examine the life of Jesus as recorded in the four gospels, the stories they question most are those of his birth. (Christian scholar Craig Keener didn’t even discuss Jesus’ birth in his monumental The Historical Jesus of the Gospels.) So how critical should we be when looking at these familiar stories? How […]
The biological theory of evolution has been the subject of argument ever since it was first proposed, especially from those christians who believe that the Bible teaches that animals haven’t evolved from simple life forms, and thus evolutionary science must not only be wrong, but also evil. But their arguments are often naive and misleading. […]
Jesus is believed by christians to have been divine, the son of God. Many christians believe he very clearly made that claim during his life, and his disciples just kept on believing it after he died. However non-believers generally believe Jesus was not divine, but rather a small time prophetic teacher and healer, but legends […]
I am currently reading Hugh Mackay’s book, Beyond Belief, which addresses the question of how people find meaning in life with or without religion. Hugh is probably Australia’s leading social researcher and commentator, regularly appearing on talk shows and in newspaper article. He is neither a christian nor an atheist, probably best described as having […]
Before we read a book, we will often want to know who wrote it and whether we can trust them to give us accurate information. It is therefore understandable that people might wonder who wrote the 27 books of the New Testament. Last post I discussed the writings of New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. One […]
Bart Ehrman is an eminent New Testament scholar, a successful writer and a thorn in the side of conservative christians. I have been reading a few more of his books lately (those shown in the picture above), to see what makes him simultaneously so popular and unpopular. Some clear themes emerge, and I think they […]
It is good, every now and again, to reflect on what we believe and why, and to review if there is any reason to change our minds. I think it is good, too, for a blog author to remind their readers of what the blog is all about. So here’s my summary – what I […]