The Bible Geek Show

Besides Jesus historicism and Mythicism, is there a "third way", whereby the Jesus of the gospels is a composite of stories originally told of several historic figures?   Several ancient sources remember Jesus as a teller of parables. Doesnâ??t this imply there was such a teacher? I would like your thoughts on creatio ex nihilo and the opening verses of Genesis. Is there any New Testament passage...

The Korean terms for God and Jesus. Why are Korean Christians so inclined to Western Protestant theology, specifically Calvinism? â??How were animal sacrifices and shamans excised from the Judeo-Christain tradition? Why was Western Christianity more successful than Eastern in suppressing polygyny?   Please recommend some sources on â??deconversion,â?? the process of â??converting" out of a religi...

When Jesus was tempted by Satan on the mountain top, why didn't he simply say "all creation is mine already, I made it, so it's not yours to give me"? Isnâ??t this Manichean? What do you know of the accusation that Count Tischendorff maybe forged part of the Codex Sinaiticus? Does the Samaritan Pentateuch have a different version of Deuteronomy? Why your pronunciation of â??Yahwehâ?? is mistaken....

Donâ??t ongoing theological developments inadvertently produce contradictions with earlier forms of the beliefs? What exactly was the place of Hercules in Ancient Greek popular devotion? And does it figure at all into positing an originally mythic Christ? Why does Christian iconography customarily depict Jesus as long-haired, if Paul considers long hair for a man dishonorable (1 Corinthians 11:14)...

The genealogy in the Bible goes from Adam to Jesus in some 6000+ years. Does this force Christians into a young earth stance? Could you comment on what is meant by â??wineâ?? in the Bible? What do you make of the theory that Paul was Jesusâ?? choice to repace Judas and that the eleven jumped the gun when they picked Matthaias? What did Albert Schweitzer mean by calling baptism an â??eschatological...

Why do even critical scholars resist the conclusion that the gospel stories are plainly rewrites of OT stories, not traditions of what Jesus said and did?.   Is there anyway to harmonize the god of the Old Testament and the story line of the Old Testament with Jesus and the New Testament ? Can we honestly call creation "good" or "perfect" if there is a dog gone crafty serpent in there? Given that...

The best evidence for God's existence is that there IS NO evidence for God's existence. That is to say, if he were to be measured he would no longer be transcendent, infinite, etc. A good, if ironic argument for Godâ??s existence in the face of no evidence? Might the two feeding, one with 7 baskets of leftovers, the other with 12, symbolize the Gentile and Jewish churches respectively? What would...

Can you recommend some good books on the historical John the Baptist or on early understandings of or religions based on him? Is there an approach you'd recommend for someone trying to get a more robust self-education on the origins of Christianity? When Jesus tells Peter, â??Get behind me, Adversary!â?? might he have been asking Satan to â??back him up,â?? reinforcing his resolve in the face of h...

How did the idea of demons and demon possession come into Judaism and Christianity? In Mark 14:47 the disciples try to resist Jesusâ?? arrest. Why do the Synoptic Gospels move from "one who stood by", to â??a companion" to â??a follower" and John seems to feel it necessary to name the one eared man? Just because the fragment P52 has text that matches what we currently identify as John 18, how can...

Opening the Transfiguration episode, Mark and Matthew state that "6 days had passed" before this event while Luke states "8 days" had passed. Why the difference in the days? What, if any, is the textual evidence that some Gnostics believed Judas Iscariot was specifically commissioned by Jesus to "betray" Jesus, in order to liberate the Christ aeon from his body? What do you think of the parallels...

How long did Adam & Eve live in Eden before being kicked out? Why do you think the â??personal relationship with Jesusâ?? was an invention of the German Pietists? Did the â??Tzadikâ?? concept in Judaism imly the possibility that a very holy man might qualify for adoption as Messiah? Also, would you comment generally on the meaning and use of the word â??zedekâ?? in the Old Testament?   During the...

Is it possible that Zechariah 6:9-15 implies a proto-Christian religion existed around the time Zechariah was written? �  If even believing Christian scholars accept that two out of the four gospels are based on earlier gospels, how could they claim to the pulpit or their congregation that the NT is an accurate representation of Jesus's life? Since the 2 Source theory is the most accepted theory...

Can you recommend an order in which to read your books? Why is the Bible THE fundamental text of Western Civilization and culture, its themes, stories, and values permeating our moral codes, our artistic expressions, and indeed our shared consciousness? The story of the modern creation of â??Saint Odysseus.â?? How credible do you find the notion that Marcion's gospel might have been a version of t...

Why do the descendants of the founders of sectarian groups rarely remain members after a few generations?   Revelation 12 seems to place the Fall of Satan in the End Times, but otherwise it is understood to have occurred at the dawn of timeâ??why? Luke 15:23 has the son return and the father say: Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate. The word for â??killâ?? is widely us...

Do you think the Shroud of Turin is authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ? What problems are there with the following scenario? Matthew combines Mark with a Q-like source. Luke uses Matthew and Mark. I was wondering, based on reading the first five books of the Bible, if Jahve was a mountain or thunder God? What, if any, historical evidence do we have of the Council of Jerusalem presumably held c...

Are there any plausible arguments that Paul actually wrote one or more of the four Gospels? Does the NT avoid using the Hebrew name for God, using the more generic â??Godâ?? in order to cater to all god systems from all nations? Might â??Jesusâ?? have been merely a name chosen to cover all the various OT and pagan characters whose stories were borrowed and combined in the gospels? If Judas was alr...

Could you talk a bit about 1. Logical problems with Christian theology 2. The morality of Christian theology 3. How diverse Christian theology is with its liberal churches (universalism) to its exclusive churches(fundamental) and are they reconcilable? What do you think of Rob Bellâ??s idea when bad things happen, people try to control the balance, by making sacrifices to the gods. The codificatio...

How far back does the earliest narrative of a great commission and ascension go? Which account--Mark's, Matthew's, or Acts'--is likely the earliest? Is any of this in anyway likely traceable to any historical figure? Is Paul responsible for turning Jesus into more of an historical, rather than mythical, figure? Why are Christians not seeing Zoroastrianism as a sort of ancestor to their tradition,...

With the repeated failure of predictions of a mortal, human â??warrior-king-priest Messiah,â??might early Jewish Christians, perhaps inspired by Danielâ??s Celestial â??Son-of-Man,â?? have scrapped the old concept in favor of a new-and-improved spiritual, immortal, eternal version that would come straight from Heaven? Combine Matthew 14, where Herod says "This is John the Baptist; he is risen from...

Catholic apologist Peter Kreeft says, "You can't write fiction about Jesus. The figure of the Gospels makes every attempt at imaginative fiction look silly." But donâ??t the gospels read like fiction, with their studied omission of mundane events and detailsâ??just a sequence of wise sayings and super-feats, and their utter lack of character development? Do you think the author of Matthew put an a...

Amy Jill Levine says that Jews do not think that Jesus Christ was the messiah because he did not usher in the messianic age. What do you think? Regarding Jesus cursing the fig tree: might it be a condemnation of Rome for failing to embrace Christianity? What do you think the "real" meaning of Matthew 16:23 (Jesus rebuking Peter as Satan) could be? Christian Lindtner on Capernaum and Kapilavastu. D...

Could you elaborate your understanding of the difference between atheism and agnosticism? Does the Bible tilt more toward predestination or free will? If belief were truly the sole requirement for salvation, belief in WHAT, exactly? What is the meaning of â??the marrow of saltâ?? in the Ninth Enochian Key? What happened to the different levels of heaven in Christian thought? Reza Aslan says: â??I...

A new study suggests that the Lebanese are descendants of the ancient Canaanites. How does this affect, if at all, the theory that the ancient Canaanites were just a literary device to illustrate the old ways of the Jews that they were abandoning? As I understand 1 John 4:1-3, it says that 'true' prophecies agree with what the Johannine community already believes! Then whatâ??s the use? Did Eccles...

Should we just understand the Eden story as about kings and subjects and the former wanting to keep their power and position, and the later wanting freedom? How different was Israelite religion from Canaanite paganism? When major characters in the NT such as apostles have multiple names, is this simple a device to combine different characters? Were the originally sinless Mary and Jesus like the si...

Is the first person narration in Nehemiah an actual memoir? Was the Gospel of Mark possibly a satire? When Mosesâ?? spies report that the Canaanites are unconquerable giants, are they just making phony excuses, â??tall talesâ??? What is going on with Saul, Samuel, and the Witch of Endor? Was it a demon impersonating Samuel? Donâ??t conventional theologians have to do a lot of text-twisting to esca...