The Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John are viewed by many as having been written independently of one another. When they agree, it is potentially significant. They may disagree on whether Jesus predicted his resurrection in a way that could, at least in theory, be understood at the time, without the benefit of hindsight (more on that in a moment). But they agree on Jesus predicting his death – indeed, both have Jesus say three times that “the... Read more

I finally watched The Golden Compass; I have yet to read the books. The movie simply does not have any sort of atheist message. It does have a message against authority seeking to keep the lid on and prevent investigation of the truth. But the truth that is being opposed is “dust”, something mystical and magical. One could as easily interpret the movie in terms of a “scientific establishment” opposing religion, as vice versa. The whole story is mythical and... Read more

What would it be worth giving one’s life for? What is worth the pain of crucifixion? Would you have given your life, surrendering yourself to a painful, shameful death, because of a conviction that God would raise you to his right hand? What if you had no such hope regarding the afterlife, but had a vision of the future, in which, even though many would kill and hate in your name, many more than otherwise would have would seek to... Read more

One can only speculate about the first post-Easter experience of “seeing Jesus”, that is left undescribed in Paul’s reference in 1 Corinthians 15 (“first to Peter”), that was perhaps in the original ending of Mark’s Gospel (or the continuation of the story known to that author), and perhaps alluded to in John 21 and in the lost ending of the Gospel of Peter. Peter returned to fishing. He wrestled with the failure of his expectations, with his own failure in... Read more

Hristos a înviat din morţi, cu moartea pe moarte călcînd şi celor din morminte viaţă dăruindu-le. Read more

There is one piece of evidence, rarely given the attention it deserves, that indicates that Jesus, on the night of his last supper with his disciples, knew that “the end is nigh” – either for him, or for history as a whole. He took a nazirite vow – foreswearing the fruit of the vine, not until he had done something or other, but until he partakes of it in the kingdom of God. Either he would not live to bring... Read more

One could begin simply with the question of what Easter is, and that would be enough to make one realize that the question of “what happened” is a historical question, even if we mean “what happened to change the lives of the disciples?” and not “did Jesus enter the resurrection age?” When it comes to questions about the past, prior to the time of anyone alive today, historical study is the only approach open to us, and provides the only... Read more

Jesus told this parable to a gathering of evangelical leaders. ‘A Spring Harvest speaker and a liberal bishop each sat down and read the Bible. The Spring Harvest speaker thanked God for the precious gift of the Holy Scriptures and pledged himself once again to proclaim them faithfully. “Thank you God”, he prayed, “that I am not like this poor bishop who doesn’t believe your word, and seems unable to make up his mind or not whether or not Christ... Read more

The sun is setting, the start of the Sabbath is at hand. On Friday, Jesus had been executed by the Romans, and buried according to the requirements of Jewish Law in a tomb located nearby, presumably there to accomodate the corpses of criminals executed on the site. Did any of Jesus’ followers try to rectify the situation? Did they hang around Jerusalem, courageous enough to try to take the body and give it the honorable burial it deserved? Or when... Read more

Young-Earth Creationists and cdesign proponentsists regularly accuse the academy and the world of censoring them (whereas the truth of the matter is that they are ignored or passed over for doing weak science and in most cases simply not doing science at all). If you want to see censorship and exclusion in action, you have to look at what creationists themselves do. The latest (rather amusing) example is covered on a number of blogs: Pharyngula (more than once), Amused Muse... Read more