Matthew 3:13-17 Mark 1:9-11 Luke 3:21-22 John 1:29-34   All four gospels describe the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River at the hand of John but, in certain regards, they do it rather differently.   Only John 1:29, for example, has the Baptist exclaim to the crowd, when he sees Jesus approaching, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”   Only Matthew 3:13-14 has the Baptist try to persuade Jesus not... Read more

    A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Lesson 6: “The Spirit of the Lord Is upon Me”   ***   Onwards and upwards!  Into the glorious world of ex-Mormon atheism!   “Fifty MORE Positives to Leaving the LDS Church”   ***   You thought that the Emperor Nero was dead?  Think again.   However, I’m aware of some folks who, I can absolutely guarantee you, will regard this as merely yet another illustration of how, in the immortal words of the... Read more

    As I say, I’ve been reading N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018).  Here’s a passage from early in the book that caught my notice:   A blinding light; a voice from heaven.  A Caravaggio masterpiece.  The persecutor becomes the preacher. . . .  The incident, narrated three times (with interesting variations) in the book of Acts, is clearly vital: from Paul’s own brief autobiographical remarks in his letters it is obvious that something fairly cataclysmic... Read more

    Here’s a piece that my friend Bill Hamblin and I published in the Deseret News back on 28 November 2015:   The Spanish city of Córdoba powerfully reminds us that Judaism, Christianity and Islam haven’t always been at war. Nestled beneath the Sierra Morena mountains in a region called Andalucía, the Roman settlement of Corduba was founded in 206 B.C. on the northern bank of the Guadalquivir River (from Arabic “al-wadi al-kabir,” meaning “the big riverbed”). Rich agricultural lands... Read more

    It seems to me an appropriate time, yet again, to call attention to just one of the many contributions of my friend and esteemed colleague Dr. John Gee to the defense of the claims of Joseph Smith and the Restoration.  This is a column that I published in the Deseret News on 30 November 2017:   Many papyri from ancient Egypt have been recovered and, by and large, only a handful of specialists pay much attention to them.... Read more

    I will grant that this note seems oddly placed.  But I’m slavishly following — that is, I’m using as my base text — Kurt Aland, ed., Synopsis of the Four Gospels: Greek-English Edition of the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 14th ed. (Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 2009), and, accordingly, I proceed:   Matthew 14:3-4 Mark 6:17-18 Luke 3:19-20   The issue here is simple enough, and sordid enough:  The tetrarch Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great who has... Read more

    A passage from N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018), 197:   The Epicureans held that, though the gods might well exist, they live in a world of their own entirely separate from the human world.  The world inhabited by humans carries on under its own impetus.  Its atoms (this view goes back to the fifth-century BC Democritus) move to and fro, “swerving” this way and that and thereby colliding with one another and producing... Read more

    I’ve been reading N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018).  The two passages below remind me of the Latter-day Saint conception of the temple, linking this world and the next, heaven and earth, those who have gone before with those living now and beyond.  I think of family history, and sealing, and the binding of generations together, and of the idea of the streets of a temple-centered city being numbered outward, to the north and... Read more

      The Interpreter Foundation is trying to be of use for students and teachers of this year’s Gospel Doctrine curriculum in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Here is some material:   Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 6: February 4–10: Matthew 4; Luke 4–5 “The Spirit of the Lord Is upon Me”   Incidentally, I’ve just learned from an anonymous poster on a predominantly atheistic ex-Mormon message board that the Interpreter Foundation is dying, or in a crisis, or something.... Read more

    Matthew 3:11-12 Mark 1:7-8 Luke 3:15-18 John 1:24-28   In the passages under consideration here, John the Baptist is very much aware of his role as the forerunner to somebody much “mightier” or “stronger” (ἰσχυρότερός) than he is.   My confidence in the four gospel accounts here is actually somewhat strengthened by the variation in their reporting of John’s remark involving Jesus’ shoes or, better, his sandals (literally, something “bound under”):   Matthew 3:11 has the Baptist saying... Read more