thoughtful ideas on life's big questions
A lot of things are written about Jesus, by believers, sceptics and everyone in between. But what do the expert historians say? There is a difference between facts and belief. In this post I am examining what those who have studied the matter have concluded. It is likely more than most sceptics want to believe […]
Historians ask who wrote the New Testament books, when they wrote them, and why, to help make judgments about their accuracy. A new book examines this.
The Old Testament is a strange book – well a collection of dozens of books actually. How can any twenty-first century person understand it? Can any thoughtful person really believe all of it? What do the experts say? These are questions I have grappled with for much of my life. I feel, finally, I have […]
The Bible says Jesus grew up in Nazareth, but until recently the evidence for this was scant and disputed by some. But now there is clear evidence of a small agricultural village or town in the first century.
Sceptics often find it difficult to take the Bible seriously because of awful or silly things, or inconsistencies. Is this a reason to disbelieve in God? Or is there is another way to look at it? We need to start be examining what the Bible is, and isn’t.
Is the Bible we read today the same as the one originally written? Has the original text been changed beyond recognition, or do scholars have so many copies that they can reconstruct the text with a great deal of confidence?
This scene from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (c 1275 BCE), shows the dead scribe Hunefer’s heart being weighed by the canine-headed Anubis on the scale of Maat. The ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart is lighter than the feather of truth, Hunefer is allowed to pass into […]
I reckon too many people, christian and non-christians alike, read the Bible in the wrong way. So how should an unbeliever approach the Bible if he or she wants to read it honestly, whether to learn from it or to critique it?
I remember being concerned about it more than 40 years ago. How could God command his people to murder everyone living in each Canaanite city that they captured? And I am not the only one to feel revolted by these commands in the book of Deuteronomy and the accounts in the book of Joshua. Critics […]
For some christians, and some critics too, Adam and Eve and the interpretation of chapters 1-3 of Genesis is a game-breaker. But I really don’t know why it should be. It seems to me that there is a perfectly reasonable and evidence-based way to look at this.