Over the Easter weekend, a friend, quite unwittingly I’ve no doubt, passed along an Easter greeting quoting John Chrysostom who wrote that “Christ is risen and death is conquered. Christ is risen and the demons have fallen.” I say it was passed unwittingly because my friend did not know or suspect that Chrysostom, the “golden …
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Was the Cenacle in Jerusalem Really Used by First-Century Christians?
Among the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem stands one that is sometimes forgotten. It certainly does not attract the barely negotiable lines encountered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The structure I am speaking of is the Upper Room of the Last Supper, often referred to as the Cenacle or, in Latin, the Coenaculum …
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Did Early Christians Believe that Jesus Walked Out of His Tomb?
Of course, all Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The claim is embedded in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed. Advocates for the resurrection go back as far as the earliest Christian writing (Paul). Today, however, it is nearly a commonplace to think that this article of faith means, and has always meant, that Jesus walked …
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Did Jesus Eliminate the Jewish Food Laws?
Did Jesus eliminate the Jewish food laws, known as kashrut? Did he announce that they no longer mattered and that what did matter was an ethical lifestyle? This is the belief of many Christians who take as their evidence the words of Jesus (or rather an editorial aside written by the author of the Gospel …
Join Me Live on April 27!
Just announced: BAS online Spring Symposium 2024 featuring yours truly along with noted scholars Pamela Eisenbaum, Ben Witherington, and Mark Goodacre. Join us on April 27 as we discuss various interpretations of the apostle Paul! You must be a BAS All-Access member to view the event but the cost is reasonable and includes other symposia …
Tis the Season…
In honor of the Christmas season, I have bumped a number of my posts dealing with the birth of Jesus to the top of my blog site for easy access. They deal with such topics as the date of Jesus's birth, the composition of typical nativity scenes, the possibility that Jesus went to Egypt, the …
Why Do the Heathen Rage?
This King James translation of Psalm 2:1 has stuck with me since childhood, long before I had any idea what it meant. But it seems apt for what I am about to share with you. First, let’s look at the psalm from the Jewish Publication Society translation (the best place to start for translations of …
The Twelve Apostles, Part 5 – Matthew, Thomas, James
We continue our historical survey of the lives of the twelve apostles. In this post, we discuss the apostles Matthew, Thomas, and James. Matthew The Greek word, Matthaios, from which we derive Matthew, comes from the Semitic Mattiyah meaning “gift of Yahweh.” Beyond that, and the appearance of his name in the lists of …
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David Christian Clausen 