We have been coming back to this question since the first unit, and now we are finally going to address it head-on. Our library contains sixty-six books. Someone had to decide which writings belonged and which did not. How did that happen? Who made those decisions? And what gave them the authority? This is what…
We now come to one of the most fascinating and delicate questions in the entire course. Who actually wrote the Bible? And I want to warn you gently at the start. This is a unit where the answer many of us grew up with, and the answer most scholars give, have drifted a long way…
As most of us know, none of the Bible was first written in English. Every Bible any of us has ever read is a translation, the product of scholars working to carry an ancient text across a gap of language, culture, and time. And on the far side of that gap sit not one language…
In Unit 1, we learned that the Bible is a library rather than a single book. Now let me take you inside that library and walk you down its aisles, because a library is only useful if you know how it is organized. Imagine walking into a building full of thousands of books with no…
The Bible may look like a single book, but it is really a library of writings produced across centuries. Understanding that diversity is one of the first steps toward learning how to read it well.
Some readers may find this question offensive. Others may think it is long overdue. Both reactions are understandable. Still, we should not avoid the question. To many traditional Christians, the question may sound blasphemous. To some critics, it may seem obvious. We should not respond with a reflex in either direction. Instead, we should take…
Why Jesus, Constantine, and 380 AD Don’t Give Us a Simple Answer When was the Catholic Church founded? It sounds like a simple historical question, but there really isn’t a simple answer. Catholics traditionally trace the Church directly back to Jesus and Peter in the first century. Others point to Constantine and the Council of…
The question of whether God had a wife has received considerable attention in recent decades. Books, documentaries, and online discussions have all taken up the topic. Much of this popular material has moved beyond the boundaries of scholarship and into speculation. From this, a bold claim has emerged: that a goddess named Asherah was once…
How did James, who did not believe during Jesus’s ministry, become one of the most important figures in early Christianity? James, whose Hebrew name is Ya’akov (Jacob), appears in the Gospels as one of Jesus’ brothers. Mark 6:3 lists him alongside Joses, Judas, and Simon. Yet the Gospel of John tells us plainly that “not…
From time to time, we encounter claims that seem almost too neat to withstand closer scrutiny. One such claim that has gained considerable traction is the assertion that ancient Jewish law recognized six, or, in some versions, even up to eight, genders, or, more specifically, biological sexes, and that this recognition has persisted for two…