Award-Winning, Bestselling Christian Author
EXTRA GOSPELS ABOUT JESUS exist. But they’re not in the Bible. For good reason, most Christian scholars say. Take the Gospel of Thomas, probably written about a hundred years after Jesus. At least that’s when scholars of the day started criticizing …
JEWS WEREN’T THE FIRST people on record to pitch the “one God” idea, some scholars say. Egyptians were. At least they are the first with archaeological evidence to back them up. About one hundred years before many Bible experts say Moses led the …
Pharisees weren’t talking about Judas when they asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” (Matthew 9:10-11 NLT). They were talking about Matthew, the tax collector. Jews considered them collaborators with Rome since taxmen …
OOPS. I forgot to write today’s blog article. It’s pushing 8:30 p.m. as I write this, and the article posts at 6 a.m. I haven’t eaten supper yet. The wife left three hours ago for her job as a night-shift nurse. So it’s just me and Buddy the Dog. And …
GRINDING TREE STUMPS or lying on a beach. That was the vacation question this summer. I chose to grind tree stumps on a stretch of rolling hills where Mom lives, in an Amish-built house on what used to be a Christmas tree farm. It’s not that I’m a …
When Jews of the Exodus returned to their homeland, they didn’t all live in what is now Israel. Three groups lived in what are now parts of the Arab countries of Jordan and Syria. They owned not only the West Bank, which is disputed today by Jordan …
I ADMIT IT. I’ve got some humans in my extended family who could not possibly live far enough away from me. Tell me I’m not alone in this. I just spent a week visiting none of them. Instead, I visited family whose company I could not possibly enjoy …
FUNNY HOW FOLKS can read the same sentence in the Bible and come away with opposite ideas about what to make of it. I got a taste of that last week when someone tripped over a couple of old blog articles I wrote back in 2013 and posted the links in a …
The Bible writer said the love of Jacob’s life, Rachel, “was beautiful and had a good figure,” (Genesis 29:17 CEV). But her older sis Leah, whom Jacob got tricked into marrying, had something going on with her eyes. Scholars can only guess what. But …
LIKE ME, JESUS HAD ODDBALLS in his family tree. I’ve been thinking about my family a lot lately because I’ve been scanning old family photos, some dating back a century. I don’t have any vintage photos of my family members in high society. I’ve got …
THERE AREN’T MANY VACATIONS going on in the Bible. At least not many that are reported. Bible folks were herders, farmers, and merchants for the most part. Those were year-round jobs except for people rich enough to hire workers or buy slaves to do …
When Jesus left, it wasn’t Peter—the leading disciple—who got the job of pastoring the first church, in Jerusalem. That job went to James, one of Jesus’ brothers. It was customary for kingship to past along family lines. First-century Jewish history, …
