Tag: Bible

Too many preconceptions about the Bible?

We all have different experiences of life and form different views about everything we think about. We bring these perspectives to different questions and challenges we are confronted with – our thinking is, the psychologists tell us, more subjective than we’d like to believe. These presuppositions and biases can’t help but affect our conclusions. Different […]

The Messiah, Isaiah and the Sydney Opera House

I’m more or less a musical Philistine so I don’t listen to much classical music. But last weekend I went along to the Sydney Opera House to listen to a performance of Handel’s Messiah. It was an excellent afternoon.

The science of Genesis?

About 6 years ago, on another blog, I did a post about a rising young evolutionary biologist who wrote a book based on accepted evolutionary science, but which related the science to the Bible’s account of creation in Genesis. He was soundly lambasted for his temerity. Now a young astrophysicist has dared to do a […]

The resurrection of Jesus – a reason to believe?

The resurrection is obviously a central part of christian belief – some say it is the amazing event that explains everything else, others that it is an impossible to believe event. So is it something that makes christianity harder to believe, or easier?

Bart Ehrman on Nazareth

I don’t think he read my recent post 🙂 but Bart Ehrman has also posted on the evidence for Nazareth existing at the time of Jesus. Bart has several advantages over me. Not only is he a professional working full time in this field, but he is able, because of his position, to have personal […]

Indigenous Australians, climate change and the New Testament gospels

How could indigenous Australians, climate change and the New Testament gospels possibly be connected? But there really is a connection. So please read on!

Shock! Horror! Turn off the Xmas lights! We shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas at all!
How the four gospels came to be written?

Vale Maurice Casey New Testament historian, Maurice Casey, Emeritus Professor of New Testament Languages and Literature in the University of Nottingham, died late last week after a long period of illness. Casey was the author of several books and a recognised expert in Aramaic and the Aramaic sources in the gospels. I have found his […]

Jesus and the historians: ‘fact’ and faith

Last post I looked at one aspect of the historical evidence for the life of Jesus – Were the gospels written a long time after the event? Another question often asked, or a claim often made, relates to how much evidence there is for the events and teachings outlined in the gospels, and how much […]

Were the gospels written a long time after the event?

I was asked recently, in the comments section of another blog, about how long the gospels were written after the time of Jesus’ death. I said it wasn’t long by ancient standards, so I thought it might be worth outlining the facts on this matter.