Nazareth in Jesus’ day: 4 facts
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.
Tag: Jesus
Can God become a baby?
Christmas is about a baby. A baby who was somehow also God. But can that idea make sense? How can we understand it?
Don’t blame Jesus for the wrongs of the church!
Christians are supposed to be following Jesus, but do their lives match up to his teachings?
How accurate is the text of the New Testament?
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?
10. Jesus appears to people – really?
What this page is about I don’t know about you, but when I hear a story of someone seeing a vision – of God, or Jesus or angels, or whatever – my first thought is to think hallucination, imagination or even invention. Likely as fake as the above graphic. We live in a day when […]
9. Does the historical Jesus reveal God?
This page in brief …. Christians believe that Jesus showed us what God is like. If that claim is true, we have a strong reason to believe God really exists. So in this page we look at three criteria that we might use to evaluate this claim – the historical evidence for Jesus’ life and […]
12 reasons to believe in God
It’s an age-old question. Is there really a God? What can we reasonably believe? But it’s also a modern question. Most cultures have evolved with a religion. For those living in that culture, believing in that religion was part of life. Not really to be questioned all that much. But in modern western cultures at […]
The evolution of hell
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 […]
Did Jesus suffer from a mental disorder?
In Mark 3, it is recorded that when Jesus’ family heard how he was attracting a great following, they thought he was “out of his mind”. These days a similar charge is sometimes made – that Jesus exhibited behaviour that suggests he suffered from a mental disorder. I’ve come across it several times, most recently […]
Going from the historical Jesus to the Jesus of faith
A reader commenting on this blog asked me some questions about Jesus and history and I thought that they were good questions worthy of a decent response. Part of John’s comment was: “So I was curious as to what your specific Christian beliefs were …. where you stand on Christ’s divinity. It’s one thing to […]