Jesus
When the Last Few Moments Changes Everything
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Picture of God, ReKnew
One of the central things ReKnew wants to accomplish is to challenge followers of Jesus to accept that the self-sacrificial love Jesus revealed on the cross is the definitive, and even the exhaustive, revelation of…
Conflicting Pictures of God
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Jesus, Picture of God, ReKnew
In my ongoing reflections on the ReKnew Manifesto, I’ve spent the last two posts (here and here) arguing that nothing is more important in our life than our mental images of God. If so, then…
God and Our Political Platforms
Category: General
Tags: Israel, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Politics
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
Rachel Held Evans posted a blog today on the stir created when Democrats booed the passing of “an amendment to the party platform reinstating language that identified Jerusalem as the rightful capital of Israel and…
The Missing Jesus
Category: General
Tags: Culture, Jesus
Jonathan Martin wrote this compelling blog on the missing Jesus last month. It’s a thoughtful reflection on how easy it is to put Jesus in a box that conforms to our political, religious or social…
Isn’t it contradictory to say Jesus is “fully God” and “fully human”?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Incarnation, Jesus, Q&A, Theology
Topics: Christology, Jesus: Lord or Legend
READER: God is, by definition, eternal, having neither beginning nor end. Human beings are, by definition, finite, beginning at a certain point in time. How, then, can Jesus be both God (eternal) and human (finite)?…
Caught Between Two Conflicting Truths
Category: General
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Old Testament, Scripture, Violence
In my previous blog I tried to show that adopting a “Christocentric” approach to Scripture isn’t adequate, as evidenced by the fact that people adopting this approach often come to radically different conclusions. In fact, it seems…
Why Did Jesus Curse The Poor Fig Tree?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Jesus, New Testament, Q&A
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Why Did Jesus Curse The Fig Tree? One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Gospels is Jesus cursing a fig tree because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs (Mk 11:12-14; Mt…
Gospel “Contradictions” and Orality Studies
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
* This essay has been adopted from G. Boyd and Paul Eddy, Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). One of the standard tests historians put to ancient documents to assess their veracity is self-consistency. Generally speaking,…
What makes the claim that Jesus rose from the dead unique?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Jesus, Q&A
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
Question: What makes the story of Jesus’ resurrection different from other pagan resurrection stories, such as those surrounding the Egyptian god Osiris? Answer: In Lord or Legend? (and more academically, The Jesus Legend), Paul Eddy…
How can you believe Matthew’s report about the Jewish cover up of the resurrection?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Jesus, Q&A
Topics: Biblical Reliability
Question: In Matthew it’s reported that Jewish authorities tried to cover up the resurrection of Jesus by saying the disciples stole the body while the guards were sleeping. I don’t buy it. How would Matthew…
Jesus: True Myth and True History
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Jesus
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
Though the Jesus story gives us every reason to believe it is substantially rooted in history, it has a curious, and fascinating, relationship with myth and legend. The story of God coming to earth, being…
Is the open view the only view that is compatible with the Incarnation?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Incarnation, Jesus, Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Christology, Defending the Open View
Question: You have said that the Open view of God is the only view that squares with the Incarnation and the only view that truly exalts God’s greatness. On what basis do you say this?…
Naturalism and the Historical Jesus
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The quest for a “merely human” Jesus The various radical views of Jesus now being advocated by certain scholars and propagated through the press are buttressed by a number of different historical arguments. Some argue,…
Twenty Arguments Against Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
On March 4th, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired James Cameron’s much celebrated documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” The documentary basically gives a new spin on an old discovery. In 1980, a first century tomb…
What do you think of the “Penal Substitution” view of the atonement?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Atonement, Jesus, Q&A
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Christology
If asked what Jesus came to do and how he did it, most contemporary western Christians would automatically say something like, “Jesus took the punishment from God that I deserved.” This is what’s usually called…
How Details in the Gospels Support Their Historicity
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
*This essay is adapted from G. Boyd & P. Eddy, Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). For a fuller discussion, see P. Eddy & G. Boyd, The Jesus Legend (Baker, 2007). There are a number of…
Is there Archeological Support for the Reliability of the Gospels?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
One of the many tests historians typically submit documents to in accessing their historical reliability concerns the extent to which archeology supports or undermines the historic claims the document makes. So we need to investigate…
Finding an Alternative Jesus
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Jesus
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The “Newly Discovered” Jesus One of the most common, and most disturbing, refrains heard in the media’s coverage of contemporary radical views of Christ is that New Testament scholars have recently “discovered” new sources of…
The Jesus Seminar and the Reliability of the Gospels
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The Jesus Seminar The primary driving force behind the popular media’s present preoccupation with liberal views of Jesus has been the Jesus Seminar. This Seminar, first convened in 1985 by Robert Funk, is a gathering…