Christology
Jesus is Lord! But what does this mean?
I discuss ‘Unity and Diversity: An Inquiry Into the Character of Earliest Christianity‘ by Professor James D.G. Dunn. Unity and Diversity is a thorough investigation into the New Testament and Christianity’s origins. It assumes the reader is familiar with the… Read More ›
Christology in the Making and why John’s Gospel does not give us the actual words of Jesus.
I read from ‘Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation‘ by professor James D.G. Dunn, pp 29-30. This text is designed for students and academics studying the doctrine of the incarnation. Dunn… Read More ›
The Council of Ephesus and the deification of Mary as ‘Theotokos’. The Qur’an responds.
The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council condemned the teachings of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who… Read More ›
The First Council of Constantinople – and why Jesus would have wept.
The First Council of Constantinople was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople in AD 381 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. This second ecumenical council confirmed the Nicene Creed, expanding its teaching to produce the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and… Read More ›
Further thoughts on the Gospel of Luke: Jesus as ‘Lord’ and ‘Christ’
Above all, the two most significant christological titles for Luke are surely Lord (kyrios) and Christ (christos). The word ‘kyrios’ had a very wide range of meanings. Kyrios can be just a term of polite respect to a teacher (as… Read More ›
The Gospel of Luke teaches that Jesus, the son of God, was created by God.
The consensus opinion of historians of the New Testament is that Luke was probably written around 80-85 AD. Like Matthew, Luke in chapters 1 and 2 of his gospel adds a birth narrative to Mark’s gospel. But as Professor James… Read More ›
How the Gospel of Matthew ‘improves’ the Gospel of Mark
Historians of the New Testament usually date Matthew’s gospel to around 80-85 AD. Like Mark, the work is anonymous. The anonymous author of ‘Matthew’ (the title The Gospel According to Matthew was added later in the second century) used Mark… Read More ›
Disgusting and totally disrespectful to Christians (and Muslims)
The Church of Iceland’s new ‘woke’ ad welcoming people to Sunday School has sparked outrage after it featured a bearded Jesus Christ with breasts, makeup and a dress. The advert, which apparently shows Jesus shaking his ‘breasts’ while dancing under… Read More ›
Why did the Jews of Paul’s day reject the Christian claims about Jesus being the promised messiah? The answer is simple..
To make sense of early Jewish outrage over claims concerning the messiahship of Jesus, we need to cut though many centuries of Christian thinking, mountains of subsequent theological speculation, and masses of Christian “common sense” about how Jesus came as… Read More ›
Shock survey: most Americans are now closer to Islam than Christianity in their view of who Jesus really was.
I confess to being surprised by this survey. Perhaps the instinctive common sense of most people shines through. A man who allegedly cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46, Mark 15:34) is obviously not… Read More ›
