If the sodomites did not want to rape the two angels, then why did Lot have to offer up his daughters? What is your opinion of the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs? Is it possible that Luke couldn't narrate the death of Paul (in Acts) precisely because it was the Petrine christians that bumped him off? That would really throw a spanner in the works for his purpose of healing the divisions between the two factions, so it might have seemed prudent just to omit the whole sorry episode altogether. Did the gospel writers write other works? Do we have any other works from the time period of the gospe ..read more

God tells the serpent he will slither. The assumption is that he lost his legs. The Bible doesn't say how he got around before. So was it was a winged serpent? What gods from Greek mythology are mentioned in the Bible?  Are sports mentioned in the Bible? Are there two sets of different ten commandments? Judges 11:24: "Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess." Does that mean that the Hebrews believed Chemosh to be real ..read more

Are there 2 competing versions of Israel crossing over the /red vSea? Does the Bible teach the Trinity? Are the 12 disciples the houses of the Zodiac? Are Levi and Matthew 2 different people? Might Noah's "bow" in the sky have been the Milky Way? Is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob a single deity or a set of 3? Are the creation stories of Genesis chapter one and chapters 2-3 different stories placed side by side? Or successive episodes of one story ..read more

Why should we think Bultmann's "Ecclesiastical Redactor" was Polycarp of Smyrna ..read more

Why do so many people describe the serpent from the Garden of Eden as the Devil? When did people begin to differentiate "religion" from "philosophy"? Why did Paul never write a thorough exposition of his beliefs/theology? Are Genesis chapter 1 and Chapters 2-3 parts of a single story? Or 2 different stories? Who changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? When Jesus tells the Jews that their father is the Devil. is he saying that Yahweh is Satan. If I’m understanding them correctly. it has been said that Jesus’s father was not the old testament God ..read more

Do any scholars understand Jesus to have been a philosopher like Socrates? What do you know about Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, and "The Local Church" movement? Why does Gerd Ludemann consider "he appeared to Peter and the Twelve" and "he appeared to James and all the apostles" to have originally been rival slogans, subsequently fused together? 1 Clement makes Clement Paul's contemporary, but wouldn't that place Paul in the 90s ..read more

Discussion of more of Paul George's fifty-eight items of evidence that Christianity arose late in the first century and probably as a result of the first Roman Jewish war and the destruction of the Jewish temple: e.g., patristic claims that 2nd century bishops were personally acquainted with eyewitnesses of Jesus or that the Gentile Mission began only after the destruction of the Temple, etc ..read more

Why do the gospels refer simply "Caiaphas" instead of the full name Joseph ben Caiaphas? If we ended up with Paul's Christology then why do Christians get circumcised? Any notions among scholars that Paul might have been on drugs, schizophrenic, bipolar or something? Why did Irenaeus think Jesus died in his fifties ..read more

I Septuagint Daniel was translated in the 3rd century BCE, mustn't the predictions of the Hasmonean revolt of 165 have been actual predictive prophecies? If the expression "fishers of men" as used in Habakkuk and Jeremiah denotes oppressors of Israel, doesn't the use of it to mean preachers of the gospel imply an unhistorical character for the relevant synoptic passages? Why do the synoptic stories of Jesus' relatives visiting him seem to denigrate Mary? Given John 3:16, the Great Commission, etc., why should Peter have been clueless when the Holy Spirit told him to evangelize the Gentile Corn ..read more

I was reading Isaiah 43 and came across this passage concerning the return of the exiles from Babylon sounds a lot like Exodus with the safe passage through water and being saved from Egypt. What’s your view on the prophetic works being used to inspire parts of the Exodus story? You speak of why we might consider Mark written at a later date - my question is "Isn't the existence in Gospel of Mark of narrative around several delays of the Parousia mean that the gospel is initially much earlier, but then interpolated on this subject to correct previous failure? i.e., can only have previous failu ..read more