Yesterday I was asked about the use of the Jewish interpretive procedure called gematria (the interpretation of words by the numerical value of their letters), and its use in the NT.  In that post, I explained how it worked.  Now I want to explain how it gets used in the NT.  As it turns out, it appears at the very outset (implicitly) in the first book of the NT, the Gospel of Matthew, and at the very end (implicitly) in the final book Revelation.  The latter will be familiar to many of you:  666!  But the former?  It’s a bit trickier. And to explain it I need to provide some background on the genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel in general.  In my next post I’ll talk about the possible use of gematria. Here’s what I've said about it before: A reader who first comes to the New Testament, and so begins at the beginning, with Matthew chapter 1, first finds him/herself confronted with a genealogy. This may not seem like an auspicious beginning, but the genealogy [...]

This now is number eight of my favorite posts from the past.   Often I deal with issues in the New Testament that in my judgment cannot be historically accurate.  One of these, to the surprise of many readers, is the familiar story of what allegedly happened at the trial of Jesus according to the Gospels: Pilate is said to have offered to release him as a favor to the Jewish crowds gathered in Jerusalem for Passover; but instead they choose a Jewish insurrectionist and murderer, Barabbas – and so that was the one Pilate released.   Could that have happened? I addressed the issue in 2019, in response to a reader’s question: ****************************** QUESTION: Pilate condemns Jesus to execution for treason against Rome. Pilate gives the Jewish crowds the option of releasing Jesus or a Jewish insurgent, Barabbas (15:6–15).   I did a quick search to see if this was an attested practice in the Roman Empire and couldn’t’ find any relevant information.  So, I have two questions:  Do you think this detail is accurate?  Is there [...]