New Testament
Are Christians supposed to tithe?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Christian Life, Finances, New Testament, Q&A, Social Issues, Wealth and Responsibility
Topics: Following Jesus
Question: I and my husband have become increasingly uncomfortable with the many sermons on tithing we’ve been recently hearing at our church. Our pastor insists we tithe 10% to the church regardless of what else…
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…
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Free Will, New Testament, Open Theism, Predestination, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Revelation
Topics: End Times, Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Revelation 13
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to…
Revelation 17:8 refers to people whose names haven’t been written in “the book of life from the creation of the world.” Doesn’t this conflict with open theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, End Times, New Testament, Open Theism, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Revelation
Topics: End Times, Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Revelation 17
As in Revelation 13:8, the clause “from the foundation” (apo kataboleis) need not mean “from before the foundation” but simply “from the foundation” (= since the foundation). It’s not that names either were or were…
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…
How do you respond to Bart Ehrman’s book, “Misquoting Jesus”?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, New Testament, Q&A
Topics: Biblical Reliability
Question: I just read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and it’s sort of rocked my world. How can we believe the Bible is God’s inerrant Word when we don’t even know what the original Bible…
Corroborating Historical Evidence of the New Testament
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
One often finds skeptics arguing that if the events recorded in New Testament actually took place, we should expect to find others of the time mentioning them. Yet, they argue, we find nothing but silence…
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…