Let's dive deep into life and its complexities
Depending on which scholarship camp a person falls within, the proposed author of Colossians ranges from Paul himself, to Timothy as a credible co-author, to a disciple in the Pauline community who was skilled in pseudepigrapgical writing and intimately familiar with Paul’s prose. This post will give a somewhat short case for why Colossians could…
Did Paul remain Jewish during his ministry, even after his Damascus experience, and despite preaching the new (and eternal) covenant made through Jesus’ death and resurrection? Moving beyond the base knowledge of Paul as a former Pharisee and also former persecutor of Christians, we can see that he was an accomplished theologian, having been skilled…
Borrowing from the old proverb, “all roads lead to Rome,” questioning the Luke-Acts version of Paul’s biography is like a case of do ‘all roads lead to (and from) Jerusalem?’ Was Paul raised and educated in Jerusalem or in Damascus? Did he ever persecute Christians in Jerusalem, or did that happen in Damascus? Did Paul…
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son…For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). From a Scriptural perspective, this passage — and which captures the entire Gospel in two verses — pretty much…
According to O’Collins and the opposing scholarship he examines, Jesus’s death and resurrection face a number of important challenges. Three of these challenges, all involving Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection, give some plausible food for thought. However, O’Collins shows logical flaws in the arguments. The first argument, originally pioneered by the pagan philosopher, Celsus, claims…
As McBrien rightfully points out that “the history of ecclesiology covers an enormous amount of biblical, historical, theological, doctrinal, social scientific, and other material” (61), answering questions #1 and #2 in this module is liking drinking several gallons’ worth of water through a firehose, then going all out at an all-you-can-eat buffet, followed by an…
For those of you who might not be familiar with Brant Pitre, he is a Catholic theologian with a gift for putting complex topics into plain English and without the high-brow, pipe-puffing scholar stereotype to go with it. On YouTube, through CatholicProductions.com, Pitre has a wide array of digestible, down-to-earth videos, usually between five and…
Ezekiel As a combination prophet and priest who lived in the thick of the exile, and whose allegorically vivid words not only resemble how earlier prophets expressed themselves, but also have a priestly authority to them (Boadt et al. 338, 339), Ezekiel is credited for writing one of the most detailed accounts of the exile….
In the world of theological conversations, the word “God” is the de facto, universal name to describe the supreme Source of Judeo-Christian belief. Yet the etymology of God, just in the Jewish tradition alone, comes from a variety of sources. Further, various names ascribed to God are clearly used in the Torah – which begs…
One word keeps flashing in my mind as we study the several hundred years of repeatedly rehashed arguments between the eastern and western churches. And that word is *bananas* — b-a-n-a-n-a-s (to the rhythm of that one Gwen Stefani song). Anyhow, lame joke aside, it is not a stretch to say that this debate is…