The Pokey Finger of God

In the traditional Early Church stories, the faith that became Christianity was started by the friends and family of the original apostles, who would meet in each others’ homes and tell stories about the Christ each of them knew. The crowds at these gatherings grew larger each year, and people would travel away to other […]

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“This is a little off the subject but I was discussing prosperity theology and came across Luke 19 – a parable Jesus said told Zacchaeus the tax collector about 3 servants charged with making money work for a king in his absence. Long story short the servant who buried the money was called wicked because […]

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After establishing the creation of the Gospels at around 80AD, at the hand of Josephus, there are still the question of when and who created the remaining books of the New Testament. Briefly, these are the Acts of the Apostles, the letters of Paul, James, and John, and the Revelation of John. I was previously ready […]

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Normally, this is a topic I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I also don’t get into arguments with people who claim the world is flat, doomed to end, or cursed by demons. It’s simply not worth the bother: folks don’t come to these conclusions through logic, so logic isn’t going to dislodge them. Evolution, […]

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Quite a milestone was reached last week when I published my book, Janus in Nicea.  I had started this blog some years ago when I realized that the state of my study of Early Church history was such that it needed a home away from Live Journal. After continued work in it, I received a […]

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I’m getting that sand-through-the-fingers feeling again. Just when I thought I had pegged the origins of “Christianity” via Constantine, I got all caught up on the question of pre-existing material. How can we know what it was he actually defined himself, and what was pre-existing? Of the pre-existing materials, why were some things chosen and […]

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Since discovery of PRF Brown’s site[1], I have burned a good many hours both reading and thinking. It’s clear that the “Eusebian Fiction Postulate”[2] has forced me to re-examine what I thought I understood about early church history. I have been relatively pleased, so far, to find that it seems to make more sense, given […]

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At the root of Judaism is a written history of people to whom Yah has spoken. These people, we are told, had direct, immediate, and personal knowledge of God. They spoke with him. He answered. His words became the driving force for their actions. This is exactly the sort of individual congress with the divine […]

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Two significant news items regarding some really old writings. The first is the Revelation of Gabriel, which is a singular slate of stone covered in ink, using an ancient hand. Although the piece has been in a private collection for years, only recently has the text been translated. Dr. DeConick has a handy index of […]

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Philip occupies a rather unusual corner of the canon. On the one hand, he’s one of the first people Jesus recruits[1] and he’s shown recruiting other apostles[2] as well as bringing the early Church to Samaria[3]. On the other hand, he’s very much a bit part: he does not appear as a significant actor in […]

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