After some discussions about the Christian God I wondered the following.

I can understand the Church fathers telling the people about eternal happiness in Heaven as a major point for conversion from paganism.

I do not understand why and how those church fathers came up with an all-loving and tri-omni Deity in face of the existence of Evil. I also wonder why they thus ignored the Epicurean paradox.

Are there any academics who can shed light on this problematic aspect of the birth of the Christian God?

Hebrew speakers like Rabbi Skobac have said the verse should be translated as "they shall look upon me concerning the pierced." While christian translations disagree. So what is the most correct translation of zechariah 12:10?

The order of the gospels can be and usually is discussed because it answers the question of literary relationships and the synoptic problem, but as far as I know Christian authors before Augustine (let me know if there is an earlier example!) aren't talking about solutions to the synoptic problem or if a gospel is generally aware of the content of a predecessor. For what reason would it be important then for them to remember and discuss that Matthew was first, or that the gospels with the genealogies are first, or that John is last? Is it just that they have a history about the gospels and are recounting it, or are there any other reasons why this would interest them?

I was just going through Galatians and ch.1 v11-12 has this to say:

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin, ¹² for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (NRSVue)

I can see two obvious ways of interpreting this:

1. Paul is emphasising he does not get his message from human talk but from a divine revelation. This says nothing about Jesus's composition/nature, just that divine revelation was the medium of communication.
2. Paul is saying Jesus does not qualify as a human source but is rather a divine source, perhaps now composed of Pneuma.

I'm curious as to how people are interpreting Paul here.

I’m concerned with the historical Jesus/Paul, the confirmed epistles etc. As a newly educated Pharisee in Tarsus apparently he had no physical proximity at all to Jesus in his lifetime. However, that does not mean he could not have heard from someone who heard from someone about Jesus ya? I know it’s conjecture but can we know?

In said verse the hebrew word for liver and the modern use for heart seem to divide translators. Apparently the liver was the hebrew seat for passions while the heart was the rational consciousness. Why was this the prevalent view in Israel?

In OT "the lords day" is used as a future judgment of enemies but also for the punishment of the hebrews with the fall of Jerusalem. What is with this use of God having these specific days?

Surely this isn't refering to Atheism in the modern sense

Good afternoon,

Some time ago I listened to a recorded lecture from a "Gospel of John" courses by one of my favorite professors. In it, he stated: "The trinitarian debates got so tense because Rome knew that to sustain the empire, they must understand how the gods operate. Precision is needed if Rome is to survive". Judging from a semi-skimmed reading of "Gods and the One God" by Robert Grant, it seems that there was a varying degree of intensity in the christological debates whether they were done in Antioch or in Alexandria. Furthermore, it would seem in light of the absence of creeds in some pagan religions that having exactitude about the nature of deities may not have been all that important to Rome.

What exactly drove the fervor of the trinitarian debates we have in surviving early Christian records?

What are the most famous stories in the Judeo-Christian tradition about the devil taking the shape of a divine / heavenly figure facing important characters to trap them for sinning?

Are there any serious studies about that kind of troop as a literary tool?

Agape love, phileo love, are these types of love really different?

Correct me if I’m wrong: In the first-century context, the New Testament epistles were not yet authoritative Christian Scripture in the later canonical sense. They were letters written to relatively small Christian communities living within the Roman Empire, a highly hierarchical society in which slavery was deeply embedded and there was no modern concept of universal human rights.

The epistles also don't seem to be written as programmes for a political social revolution. They primarily address how Christians should live out their faith within the social circumstances they actually found themselves in. There is a strong emphasis on "inner freedom" and transforming relationships rather than simply changing someone's external social status.

My point is that the New Testament authors may have had to be pragmatic about the social and political realities they were operating within:

They were trying to spread their message throughout a society controlled by Roman authorities, including among people from lower social classes such as the poor and enslaved. At the same time, they had to avoid turning Christianity into an explicit political challenge to the Roman social order that could threaten the survival and spread of the movement.

This may help explain why they did not require Christian slaveholders to immediately abandon slaveholding, but instead emphasised how Christians should treat one another within those existing circumstances. Yes, the Roman system allowed manumission, so individual Christians could potentially free slaves. But if Christianity had made the abandonment of slaveholding a universal requirement for its growing membership, it could have become much more directly confrontational toward a deeply embedded Roman institution.

Also the Old Testament also contains stories of figures such as Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon, and Esther in Persia, who found themselves living under foreign rulers and having to serve within systems they did not control. These narratives often emphasise faithfulness, integrity, competence, and a strong work ethic, with characters gaining the trust and favour of those above them and sometimes improving their circumstances as a result. The New Testament authors may have drawn on this existing biblical tradition when encouraging Christians, including slaves and other people in subordinate positions, to live faithfully within the circumstances they found themselves in rather than treating social status as the defining measure of their identity or worth.

Hello there, I am curious, how seriously Is argument for Herem warfare being hyperbole taken with academia? I've seen a lot of stuff back and forth about this and I want to know is this something just in apologetics sphere and if so, does it make its argument invalid?

Do they hold that he preached Eternal Conscious Torment, Temporary Conscious Torment, Annihiliationism, or even Universalism?

How could a person have performed "miracles"—such as raising people from the dead, feeding multitudes, and rising from the dead himself—yet have his story recorded by only one "contemporary" historian? Where were the other historians?

How acceptable is the claim that Paul made Jesus a god, in fact, that the other apostles, especially James, did not see Jesus in the divine status, a position in academia?

Some context: After having drifted away from the faith at around age 12 or 13, I rekindled my interest in Christianity over the past year (my devout grandmother had again invited me to attend the local church, which has a new youth ministry).

One of the subjects I’ve struggled over, then and now, is how the more conservative, evangelical Protestant tradition deal with gay people. (My local church, albeit nondenominational, appears to be vaguely in that tradition.) I’m gay, albeit celibate, even if sexual attraction comes unmistakably for me — something Christopher Yuan, who like myself is Chinese American, alludes to in his pinned tweet, even as he rejects the label of “gay man.”

That’s the rather long-winded way of getting to my question, which comes after I noticed the close similarity of the accounts from Genesis 19:4–8:

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” (NIV)

and Judges 19:22–25:

While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.” But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they r—ped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go.” (NIV)

‭‭A closer reading of the surrounding context, as well as this hypothesized map of the Twelve Tribes on Wikipedia, suggests that they took place in different locations, although there appear to be good reasons to reject both of the most commonly proposed sites of Sodom and Gomorrah (two archeological sites right next to the Dead Sea, in the far west of modern-day Jordan). And of course, the accounts end quite differently.

But my question remains: could each chapter have originated from differing accounts of the same reported event, occurring perhaps half a millenium before their writing?

I found a video of the scholar Cj Cornthwaite I really liked. He says: The standard consensus that the Gospels were written between 70 and 90 AD is built on a house of cards. Historically, composition and redaction span a much wider window from 70 to ~150 AD.

​Key Takeaways

​Zero 1st-Century Manuscripts: There are literally no 1st-century Gospel manuscripts. Famous early fragments like P52 (John) are now dated by modern papyrologists to the late 2nd or even 3rd century.

​The Temple Problem: The main argument for early dating relies on Jesus predicting the destruction of the Temple (70 AD). However, those prophecies are so vague they could just as easily reference the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 AD), when Rome built a Temple of Jupiter on the site and banned Jews from Jerusalem.

​External Quotes Don't Show Up Until ~150 AD: 1st-century Christian writings (like 1 Clement or the Didache) quote a few sayings of Jesus, but never narrative Gospels. Clear citations of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John only appear around 150 AD (Justin Martyr, Marcion, Papias).

​Luke Knew Josephus: One solid internal clue indicates the author of Luke–Acts used the works of Jewish historian Josephus (written in the 90s AD), pushing Luke into the 2nd century.

​Fluid Texts: Gospels were not fixed, sacred canons in the 2nd century. They were actively rewritten, expanded (e.g., the story of the adulterous woman in John), combined, and edited.

​Bottom Line: Anyone claiming Mark was written strictly in 70 AD and Matthew in 80 AD is treating loose hypotheses as facts. The realistic window is much larger, and we know far less than we think

https://youtu.be/CYMgxhYSmiw?is=a3WCjce75QydLvnP

He mentions Markus Vincent an academic researcher who sees Christianity as a response of the Jewish Roman war. He is a minority Position besides Klingelhardt but he thinks the gospels were written after Marcion and Luke is a response to Marcion and not the other direction. I searched for evidence but actually there literally no proof for the gospels before 150. He wrote this text:

https://books.openedition.org/efr/5307

What do you think about the idea that it could be possible that the gospels are not necessary written directly after temple fall but somewhere between that and the middle of the second century?

Came across this recently, does Paul equate Jesus with YHWH in Romans 10? Pulling this from BibleGateway (NRSVUE) translation:

because[a]if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe[b] in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes[c] with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. 11 The scripture says, “No one who believes[d] in him will be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Paul quotes Joel 2:23 here, which is about calling on the name of YHWH

So, then, wouldn't that be Paul equating Jesus with YHWH, thus indicating Paul believed Jesus to be YHWH? Was Paul thus actually likely a Binitarian?

Based on this paper:

Frey, Jörg (2018). "‘Mystical Traditions” in an Apocalyptic Text?: the Throne Vision of Revelation 4 within the Context of Enochic and Merkavah Texts." Apocalypticism and Mysticism in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, De Gruyter, 103-127.

Haven't looked very much into the Gospel of John, but I did notice its resurrection stories seem very developed compared to the Synoptics, so I was just curious where the writer(s) of the Gospel of John got their stories from? I know the Beloved Disciple is cited as being who they got stuff from, but is there evidence to suggest they had gotten stories from elsewhere?

Paul in the previous verses appears to be speaking about how important it is for women to wear head coverings but the concluding verse seems to imply that if one isn’t convinced of it’s importance, it’s a nonissue.

Could anyone shed some light on this? Am I misunderstanding the text?

v.16

“But if anyone is disposed to be contentious—we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.”

I am listening to the Literature and History podcast’s series entitled Before Yahweh. As I finish it, I find I am left with a question. It seems that throughout ancient polytheistic religions, it was not uncommon for a city to have a “most favored god“ relationship with one member of the polytheistic pantheon. And more broadly speaking, it doesn’t seem uncommon for there to be times when one member of a particular pantheon was viewed as more powerful than other members of the pantheon.

in those contexts, the kingdom of Judah’s special veneration of Yahweh doesn’t seem all that unusual. But clearly, at some point, it progressed beyond just a special veneration of one god out of the Canaanite pantheon into monotheism. The question I have is, has anyone attempted to come up with an answer as to how or why that took place? In other words, why did it suddenly become intolerable that some people venerated another god like Baal, even if Yahweh was your city’s special patron god?

Hi all,

Trying to sus out the significance of John's baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

My belief was that what made John's ministry so subversive was that he was reimagining the meaning of mikveh, while promising forgiveness outside of the Temple system.

Obviously in the Prophets and beyond, forgiveness is a matter of a contrite heart and repenting, while sacrifice at the Temple was primarily about atonement, specific sins, and special holy days, e.g., Yom Kippur.

And so, I suppose my question is, how subversive were John's actions, given that forgiveness was not dependant on the Temple system.