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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?

Matthew 27:9 mistakenly attributes the story of the purchase of the potters’ field to Jeremiah rather than Zechariah. All of the extant manuscripts of his gospel reference Jeremiah (amazingly, no writing of a single copyist who bothered to correct Matthew seems to have survived). “This passage...

In this second Part – the first Part is not yet complete, but I have been asked by a poster there to explain why I think Jesus is God – I am moving from the logical to the theological. I always intended to explain my thinking in this second Part after concluding the first Part, which focuses on...

At the suggestion of a poster on another thread that, like so many on this site, quickly began to fray as Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians debated (I’m being kind in using that word) the meaning of each side’s proffered biblical verses, I’ve decided to explain my position that Trinitarians...

I should start this post by disclosing my view that "Once Saved Always Saved" is either trivially true or demonstrably false, depending on when one views "saved" as actually kicking in (is it at the moment of coming to faith, or is it at the end of a life lived in accordance with that faith?)...

A. All of us sin (1 John 1:8). B. Anyone born of God does not sin (1 John 3:9). Therefore, C. None of us is born of God. What's wrong with this argument? I've posed this question to several "born-again" Christians who admit that they still occasionally sin. They were all quick to point...

Deut. 11:26 portrays the Law as both a blessing to those who keep it and a curse to those who don’t. Has Galatians swept the “blessing” part under the rug? Gal. 3:10 stresses that the curse follows a single slip-up (quoting Deut. 27:26). Gal. 3:11 tells us that justification does not come...

Many Protestants believe that prayer for the dead is pointless; that God’s judgment, be it salvation or damnation, is solely and unalterably based on what the deceased did or believed (I don’t want to get into the faith vs. works controversy here because it is irrelevant to the present question)...

For you inerrantists out there . . . how can you tell whether a particular verse is or is not engaging in hyperbole? (Example: 2 Sam. 2:18 declares that “Asahel was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle.” If true, Usain Bolt would have had no chance against him!)

In 1 Cor. 7:14 we find Paul’s comment, made in the mixed-marriage context, that an unbelieving partner is made holy by his or her believing partner, and that the children of the union are likewise holy. Is holiness somehow sexually transmitted, and genetically passed on to the next generation...

In Matt. 28:19, Christ reportedly commissions his apostles to spread the gospel to “all the nations.” The Greek word ethnē translated as “nations” in these verses is universally interpreted to include Gentiles―making it a complete reversal of Christ’s earlier instruction to the apostles to...

In the Sermon on the Mount, right at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is quoted as saying “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matt. 6:14). Taken literally, Matt. 6:14 is unconditional, absolute, in the form “If X, then Y,” i.e., if we...

There is a disconnect between the Synoptics’ association of John the Baptist with Elijah (Matt. 11:13-14; Mark 9:13; Luke 1:17) and John’s denial of it (John 1:21). Given that John wrote last, and must have been aware of the tradition that connected the Baptist with the OT prophet, what...

Did the story recounted in 1 Sam. 28 really happen? Wherever you come down on this, you’re going to be in good company. Smelik, “The Witch of Endor: 1 Samuel 28 in Rabbinic and Christian Exegesis Till 800 A.D,” Vigiliae Christianae, Vol.33 No. 2 (June 1979), has done the survey: Justin...