In this ninth of my series on” Death, Afterlife, and the Future,” I consider the thesis of the late great Oscar Cullmann who argued that Christianity–anciently and down into our own time–has largely lost the view of “resurrection of the dead” as declared by Jesus in our gospel sources and…
When I was a freshman in college at Abilene Christian University in the mid-1960s I decided early on to focus on the Bible and early Christianity–basically New Testament Studies. I had returned from a trip to the Holy Land the previous summer, and I was fired up with the idea–at…
Dale C. Allison, Jr., The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (T&T Clark, 2021) is truly Allison’s magnum opus on the subject of the resurrection of Jesus. It is by far the best, most comprehensive, and acutely discriminating work on the topic of which I am aware. I love its organization…
This revised post I originally wrote in 2015 and it has received an enormous amount of traffic over the years–definitely in the “Top Ten” category of over 500 posts on this Blog. I have revised it here and there but it sets forth a solution to the matter of how…
Please don’t laugh. This is in fact a serious question that I have never heard addressed, though it apparently occurred to Michelangelo! Tomorrow I am recording a Youtube segment in my ongoing series on ideas of “Death and Afterlife” in the ancient Western world that will deal with our early…
Of all the main English translations of the Bible available–and there are more than a few dozen–I still prefer the older Revised Standard Version (RSV) published in 1952–with a 2nd edition in 1971. I realize most of my academic colleagues recommend the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), released in 1989…
This is an informal post sent to me by e-mail from Wendy Pond one of my readers. I asked her for her permission to pass it on. This matter of sorting out the Marys in the three anointing scenes in our gospels (Mark/Matt; Luke, and John) is a complex one.…
Okay…here it comes…This is the 7th in my ongoing series on ideas of “Death and Afterlife” in the ancient Western world.” BUT NOTE: In this one hour in-depth study I question many of the most common assumptions regarding what our earliest textual evidence in fact says about the idea of…
In this fourth of my series on “Death and Afterlife in the Ancient Western World,” I offer a very brief overview of ancient Egyptian views of death and the underworld. These views go back 5000 years and set the stage for later developments in moving religious concepts from “this world”…
