In the wake of yesterday’s natural disaster in Haiti two instinctive responses are likely. All, I hope, will seek to find ways of helping to alleviate the suffering of our Haitian friends. Some Christians may begin to wonder about the devastating earthquake as a ‘sign’ or judgment from God. Let’s resist this second response and remember how Jesus countered a similar line of sloppy thinking re two incidents in Lk.13.1-5. The first incident: when he…

What was the nature of the academic landscape when the German scholar Julius Wellhausen proposed his late-date 4-source theory to explain how the Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy) came to be written/edited?  Was the hypothesis grounded in and informed by the related disciplines of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) studies?
Veteran specialist in ANE archaeology and literatures, Kenneth Kitchen thinks not and points out the absence of material to work with in the late 19th century and…

Those who desire to read the Bible responsibly must understand that they are  reading an ancient book and not one written according to the conventions of the 21st century AD.
A biblical genealogy is “a list of names indicating the ancestors or descendants of an individual or individuals, or simply a registration of the names of people concerned in some situation…” [New Bible Dictionary, 1962, 456, hereafter NBD].
The names in such a list serve…

THE BEAST’S NAME, In the revelation from the angel (17.9-10) there is a double-edge to the beast’s identity. v. 9 “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. v. 10 the KJV reading is unfortunate ‘and there are’ instead of ‘and they are’ or ‘they are also’. And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue…

What kind of book is Revelation? The fancy name for Revelation is the Apocalypse, a Greek derived word meaning ‘uncovering’ or ‘unveiling or literally ‘revelation’ in other words ‘not covering up’. “a famous book in which St. John concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by commentators who know nothing.” (Ambrose Bierce) Revelation commentaries are often like a black hole (in astronomy) they are so dense that no light can escape from them……