How Long, O Lord, How Long?

more desirable than gold, than much fine gold; sweeter than honey, than drippings of the honeycomb   Psalm 19:11  Jack Riemer Sweeter than honey – I am often amazed at the ignorance of biblical scholars—on both sides of the aisle.  Christian scholars for centuries completely misunderstood the importance of Moses in the background of the Messiah. …

Mileage Maker

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants shall be named.” Romans 9:6-7 NASB Not all Israel – Daniel Boyarin’s study of the invention of heresy as a way to establish religious…

God’s Last Name

“Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.”  Exodus 3:10 NASB My people – About a month ago we examined thirteen changes that radically affect interpreting the Bible. The first few involved names. “Jesus is not his name” was at…

Correcting the Text

Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1:1-2a NASB To the church – Let’s make some corrections to the way that we read the letters of Paul. Let’s start by removing the anachronistic verbiage and its accompanying theological implication. Mark Nanos offers three…

The World Is Not Enough (2)

“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” John 17:15 NASB Take them out – “Judaism is God’s perennial question-mark against the condition of the world.”[1] God has invited us to be His partners in redeeming the world. That means we must question…

Who Translates What

But concerning the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote, having decided that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.” Acts 21:25 NASB Abstain from – Recently a reader questioned my contention that the Acts 15 Jerusalem counsel did not establish a separate behavioral…

Label Mill

And Agrippa replied to Paul, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.”  Acts 26:28  NASB Christian – So here it is.  That famous verse used by Christian apologists to claim that Paul’s message was the Christian gospel intended to convert both Jew and Gentile into the Church.  What could be…

Three Times Only

And Agrippa replied to Paul, “In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian.” Acts 26:28 Christian – The disciples of our Lord never refer to themselves as Christians.  In fact, the Greek term christianos and its derivatives are only used three times in the New Testament (Acts 11:26, Acts 26:28 and…