When I started the blog back in 2012, I had two main goals. The first was to take the historical study of the New Testament and early Christianity out of the academy and make it available to anyone who wanted to learn. The second was to do some good with it. From the very beginning, every membership fee has gone straight to charity. That’s now added up to more than $3 million for organizations fighting hunger, homelessness, and more. But here’s the reality: because every membership fee is passed directly to charity, the blog itself doesn’t keep a penny to cover its own expenses. Running this site costs money (staff, technology, infrastructure, growth). Those costs have only ever been met by a handful of generous supporters working quietly behind the scenes. Without them, there would be no blog, no community, and no charitable giving. Now we’re opening that small group of supporters more formally, and inviting you to become a Blog Steward. (You can proudly call yourself a BS’er!) What It Is A Blog Steward [...]

I have come up with a new way of thinking about our finitude, about the fact that we all die and (in my view) that’s the end of the story.  At least I think it’s a new way.  I don’t recall ever hearing or reading it.  If it is a common view, or a least a view that is out there (and/or long has been!), I have no doubt some of you will tell me. First, some background: My new (to me) thought is predicated, as I just indicated, on my personal opinion that death is the end of the story for each of us, an opinion many of you will heartily disagree with.  I began to hold this opinion when I became an agnostic/atheist some thirty years ago or so.  I don’t think we have souls  that are somehow separate from our physical/material beings or that will live on after we die.  I think this bodily existence is all we will ever have. Many people find that view deeply depressing and [...]

Now that I have discussed the themes, emphases, authors and occasions of the “Johannine epistles” (1, 2, and 3 John) I can provide some suggestions for further reading.  These are all important works written by scholars for non-scholars.  I have given brief annotations for each book to give you a sense of what it’s about and so help you decide which, if any, might be worth your while. I have divided the list into three sections: Books that provide important discussion of one or more of these Catholic epistles, and of the problem of persecution dealt with in 1 Peter. Commentaries that give lengthy introductions to all matters of importance about the book of Acts and then go passage by passage to provide more detailed interpretation (that’s where you can dig more deeply into “what does this particular word actually mean?”; “what is the real point of this passage”; how does this passage relate to what Luke says elsewhere in his two-volume work or to what we can find in other parts of the New [...]

In this post I continue my summaries of the books of the New Testament “In a Nutshell” by turning to the letters of 2 and 3 John.  Because these are so brief, I will deal with them together in a single post, explaining their themes and emphases and exploring the question of who wrote them, when, and why.   For a one-sentence, fifty word summary of the two together, how ‘bout this:   2 and 3 John are letters by an author called the “elder,” the first addressed to a community and the other to one of its prominent members, warning against believers who preach a false understanding of Christ and who refuse to welcome Christian travelers because they disagree with their views.   I can now move on to a more extensive overview of these two books. On one level, they are not nearly as difficult to read as, say, the Gospel of John. Each of them is short and direct, taking up only a page each, about average for most [...]

If you've been following along with the blog the last few years, you've probably heard various rumblings about a new blog platform. You might have even have periodically wondered, "Is that project still happening? What's the latest?"  We're excited to let you know that the first phase of the new platform we've been working on behind the scenes is finally ready to launch on Monday, September 8th. The blog will briefly go offline during this time. Here’s what that means: The blog will likely be down for 8–12 hours, though it could take up to 2 days. During that time you’ll just see a maintenance message when you navigate to the website. If any scheduled posts are impacted, they will simply be published when the site is back up and running. You won't miss anything! When it’s back up, you won’t notice any visible changes. The blog will look and work just the same for the time being. The difference is under the hood. We’ve cleared out years of technical debt, which means from here [...]

I now provide a bullet point list that summarizes "at a glance" Paul's very first surviving letter (and therefore the earliest Christian writing of any kind that we have!), along with some questions to reflect on based on this very interesting text.  It's a short but fascinating letter; if you don't remember it very well, give it a re-read; and do see what I've said about it in this "Nutshell" series, see the posts here: 1 Thessalonians in a Nutshell 1 Thessalonians: Who, When, Why 1 Thessalonians for Further Reading Here now is a quick overview/summary of key points: At a Glance:  1 Thessalonians I Thessalonians is the earliest of Paul’s epistles, and thus the earliest book of the New Testament and the earliest surviving Christian writing of any kind. It can be used to provide clues concerning how Paul went about his missionary activities. He evidently did not preach on the street corner or stage evangelistic rallies, and he did not (contrary to the book of Acts) begin by preaching in [...]

We recently shared part one of a post written by Platinum blog member, Mark Reichert. You can find the first part here. Here now is the second part of his two-part reflections in which he offers his own reconstruction of what might have happened after the crucifixion. So what do I think really happened? There is no way to know for sure but I can put together a story that seems plausible and makes sense to me. I believe Jesus and his following traveled to Jerusalem for Passover during the governorship of Pontius Pilate. How large a following I do not know though enough for it to be considered a “following.” Once there, he came to the attention of Roman and/or Jewish authorities in a negative way. Either he said, or someone accused him of saying, that he was “King of the Jews.” I highly doubt the account in Mark that states Jesus was bound by Jewish priests and elders and brought before Pilate. This would be like Palestinian authorities turning a [...]

In earlier posts I provided discussions of both 1 and 2 Corinthians: their major emphases and themes, what we know about their context, when they were written, and why.   Check them out here: 1 Corinthians in a Nutshell 1 Corinthians: Who, When, and Why? 2 Corinthians in a Nutshell 2 Corinthians: Who Wrote It, When, and Why? Below is a concise summary of both discussions (each book “At a Glance”), taken from my book The New Testament: A Historical Introduction (Oxford University Press) and some questions for reflection to help you think through some of the issues that the books (and scholarship on them) raise.     1 Corinthians at a Glance First Corinthians is written to a church located in Corinth, in the Roman province of Achaia, a city with a reputation for dubious morals in antiquity. Paul had established the church by converting former pagans to faith in Jesus; most of his converts were poor and uneducated, but some came from the upper classes. The different socioeconomic levels of the Corinthian Christians may [...]