I believe that we need to read Paul with a sense of his own intense conviction that he was exploring a new country—as fertile, beautiful and exhilarating, above all as real and tangible in its working, as any that a sixteenth-century sailor might have run across in his voyages of discovery. Did Paul transform Christianity?… Continue reading The Story of Paul’s Life and Ministry
Light photographed as both a particle and wave –Energy-space photography of light confined on a nanowire, simultaneously shows both spatial interference and energy quantization. Source: Fabrizio Carbone/EPFL The historical datum now before us is a widely held, consistently shaped and highly influential belief: that Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead. This belief… Continue reading The Story of Easter according to the Apostle Paul, “The New Testament In Its World,” Chapter 13
Gates of Hell in the MusĂ©e d'Orsay, Auguste Rodin Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined; without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words… Continue reading Who Did Jesus Think He Was? Redux
Rafting on the Jordan River: Taglit Birthright Israel [Jesus] believed that Israel was at the cross-roads, that she must choose between two conceptions of her national destiny, and that the time for choice was terrifyingly short. This explains why, in his instructions to his disciples, he speaks of ‘towns where they receive you’ and ‘towns… Continue reading Chapter 9 – The Profile and Praxis of a Prophet – The New Testament in Its World – Wright and Bird
Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene 1964 (By Gert Chesi) All of the quotes below are taken from The New Testament In Its World, NT Wright and Mike Bird, Zondervan, 2019. The Study of the Historical JesusThe quest for the historical Jesus, in fact, clearly began soon after Jesus’ death and is reflected in the writings of… Continue reading The New Testament In Its World – Chapter 8 – The Study of the Historical Jesus
The Carpenter's Nail 