Shane Rosenthal
When thinking about the crucifixion, many people assume that since the Romans were in charge, Jesus was most likely taken to a Roman execution site somewhere outside the city wall of Jerusalem. But in John 19, we’re told that Pilate delivered Jesus over to the chief priests and that they were the ones who led […]
According to recent stats, religious affiliation is on the wane and autonomy is on the rise. Of course, these things are proportionally related, for as people increasingly adopt the dogma that above us is only sky, they begin to see themselves (either individually or collectively) as the ultimate source of authority. In such a world, […]
The old proverb “God is in the details” means that it’s in the small and seemingly insignificant minutiae of an event that we see the truth and intent behind it. (This why graduate students painstakingly work their way through five-inch-thick books in the stacks of the university library!) There are certain details—the color of the […]
There once was a man who claimed to be in possession of a lost painting of Leonardo da Vinci. Upon hearing this claim, the curator of a prestigious museum asked him if it had ever been appraised. “No,” said the man. “No one outside my family has ever seen the portrait, but all of us […]
The Fourth Gospel: Authentic Artifact or Fake Reproduction? There once was a man who claimed to be in possession of a lost painting of Leonardo da Vinci. Upon hearing this claim, the curator of a prestigious museum asked him if it had ever been appraised. “No,” said the man. “No one outside my family has […]
It has been over a decade since Richard Bauckham’s critically acclaimed book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses was first published. Last spring, Eerdmans released a new edition with three completely new chapters, a new preface and an updated bibliography. In his foreword to this second edition, Cambridge scholar Simon Gathercole acknowledges the importance of Bauckham’s original […]
1. Biased Sources Those who wrote the NT documents were "believers" and therefore biased. These texts are not historical documents but articles of faith. Rebuttal Everyone is biased. A lawyer building a case is biased in favor of his client, but that does not invalidate the evidence. What accounts for the particular "faith" of these […]
I was raised in a Jewish home without a lot of theology. Okay, to be honest, without any theology really. My father never read or discussed the Bible at home, and he was downright hostile to those who were foolish enough to knock on our door spreading their religious views. There was simply no excuse […]
Imagine for a moment that a school in your neighborhood organizes a field trip for one hundred of its students to a nearby zoo and that during this trip a number of large animals escape and end up trampling sixty children. Not only would this become a national news story, but more importantly, it would […]
In the beginning of The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis describes the near conversion of a solid atheist. As the man is meditating on the ideas of a particular book, a train of thought is, according to the elder demon, "beginning to go the wrong way." Screwtape could have suggested counterarguments to his patient, but […]
Rule 1: Classify Is the purpose of the article/post to entertain, inform, edify,instruct? Most pieces will fit into one of these categories, so pick one and skim it through that lens. Rule 2: Skim to Scan A good skimmer is a master in the art of scanning. He is one who has learned to pick […]
What is the chief end of man? "The chief end of man is to glorify ourselves, thus immortalizing our name and to reach Elysium." Not the answer you were expecting? That's probably due to the fact that I was quoting from The Homeric Shorter Catechism, a fictional document created by my daughter Sydney as part […]
According to Mortimer Adler, “Of all things that human beings do, conversing with one another is the most characteristically human.” Unfortunately, the art of conversation has fallen on hard times in our day. Virtual conversations abound’we watch talking heads on television or listen to people debate the issues of the day on talk radio’but how […]
Diana Butler Bass opined in The Huffington Post that "one of the most significant trends in American religion is 'switching': people who grew up in one religion and changed to another." (1) I've never really thought of myself as a trendsetter, but I was on board with this whole switching thing as far back as […]
In their widely acclaimed book The Narcissism Epidemic, authors Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell document the slow and steady growth of narcissistic attitudes, behaviors, and assumptions in various aspects of American life and culture. Reality TV both encourages and normalizes self-centered behavior. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook encour-age us to post […]
