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Gen. 2:2a in the Masoretic Text states that God completed His work on the seventh day, while the Peshitta, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the LXX has Him completing work on the sixth day. Whether these sources substituted “sixth” in order to resolve the obvious problem of God completing his work...

In Romans 1:3 Paul declares that Jesus was a descendant of David “according to the flesh.” Is it true? Matthew’s genealogy traces Joseph’s lineage to David, not Mary’s. Ditto for Luke. No gospel passage declares that Mary herself descended from David. It’s pretty clear that during Jesus’s...

We can express the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (three “persons” in one God) as a set of propositions in this way: 1. There is only one God. 2. The Father is God. 3. The Son is God. 4. The Father is not the Son. 5. The Holy Spirit is God. 6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. 7. The Holy...

This question is for those of you out there who believe that being "inspired" or "God-breathed" is the functional equivalent of God telling the author what to write: What is the point of carefully investigating the facts, as Luke 1:3 declares the author did? Colossal waste of time? Trying to...

Matt. 12:39-40 tells us: "But he answered them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was for three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the...

John 11 recounts the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. As Jesus's miracles go, this one was a BIggie! John tells us that it was the real impetus for Jewish defections to the Jesus camp, for according to John 12:11 “it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and...

When the gospels were written in the mid- and late-First Century, Christians didn’t instantly consider them “Scripture.” That took a while. But long before the Biblical canon was fixed in the Fourth Century, a consensus started to develop. Gospels were copied and circulated, and eventually...

The Trump campaign is running a TV ad which quotes the following snippet from a statement Harris made in 2019: “Taxes are gonna have to go up.” Virtually nobody seeing the ad will remember that what she actually said was “estate taxes are gonna have to go up for the richest Americans.” What...

When Scripture is silent on something, we often make an assumptions about what likely happened based on our own predilections masquerading as logic. Here’s an example: Did Methuselah die in the Great Flood? Gen. 7:6 tells us that Noah was 600 years old at the time of the flood. That means his...

The Torah is not a monotheistic manifesto. National gods were de riguer back then, albeit with the God of Israel being supreme over the pantheon. And I can't help but wonder whether this eventually became something of a Jewish embarrassment. With few exceptions, almost all English translations...

Traditionally Moses is viewed as having written all five books of the Torah, including Deuteronomy (except for the last part that records his death). But Deut 1:1 says "These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan—in the wilderness, on the plain opposite Suph, between...

1 Peter 2:5 (KJV) admonishes that believers are "an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." The word for "sacrifices" here, thysias, Is the same word found in Hebrews 5:1 ("For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things...

Most religions, oriental and western, have their own set of revered writings. But what qualifies a writing as "Scripture?" What criteria mark writings as what Bruce Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content (3rd ed. 2003), calls "sacred, authoritative, and worthy of being...

The Prologue to Luke's gospel provides: "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully...

Mark 6:3 reports that people in Nazareth called Jesus “the son of Mary.” that is unusual in the extreme; Jewish men were almost always referred to by their father's name -- so the people of Nazareth would have preferred “the son of Joseph” IF they believed Joseph was his biological father. See...

Luke 23:34a ("Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing"), a prayer unique to Luke's gospel. is widely viewed as missing in the original text. That is the conclusion of many scholars, including Whitlark and Parsons, "The 'Seven Last Words: A Numerical Motivation for the...

No one is above correction. I think everyone here agrees with this. Yet when it comes to our own deep-seated religious views, the acceptance of correction and the ability to step back and question our beliefs seems to be lacking. We approach Scripture, theology and even worship with implicit...

Are you saved, or is it too soon to so declare? Paul's writings can support either view -- either salvation by present justification, or salvation by future events or states post-justification. I doubt I can improve on David Nienhuis' summary in “Reading James, Rereading Paul,” in The Early...

Since the Jews don't believe that faith in Christ is the key to salvation, nor that God has opened up salvation to the Gentiles, why would there be any jealously whatsoever? Romans 11:11 just doesn't make much sense to me. Does it to you?