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One of the recent areas of apologetic debate concerns the text of the New Testament. Can we be confident that the texts that we have, which are then translated into our own native language, are a reliable record of the texts that were first written by the authors? Are the processes of copying and transmission … Continue Reading
If that sounds like an odd question to you, then you need to know that someone once wrote a PhD on the influence of T S Eliot on Shakespeare. The thesis was of course on how our reading of Eliot creates a lens through which we then read Shakespeare (I am assuming, dear reader, that … Continue Reading
The Feast of the Epiphany in the church’s liturgical calendar is based on the events of Matt 2.1–12, the visit of the ‘wise men’ from the East to the infant Jesus. There are plenty of things about the story which might make us instinctively treat it as just another part of the constellation of Christmas traditions, … Continue Reading
One of the problems about the development of traditions around Christmas is that people writing hymns or plays set Jesus’ birth in their own world rather than in what we know of the first century. In particular, many assume that Jesus was born in winter, since Christmas is celebrated in winter in the northern hemisphere. … Continue Reading
I have posted this every year since 2013, and every year it stirs up a response. Why does it matter? For at least four reasons: 1. It demonstrates how, even with important parts of Scripture, we find it hard to read what Scripture actually says. 2. It also shows how easily we impose our own … Continue Reading
Dr Susan Hylen is Associate Professor of New Testament at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She has recently published Women in the New Testament World with Oxford University Press, and I asked her about the book. IP: How long have you been interested in the first-century context of women in the New … Continue Reading
It is a well-worn (though often neglected!) principle of reading any text that ‘a text without a context is a pretext’—in other words, if you are going to read anything well, then you need to put it in its context, else you will be able to make it mean whatever you want. This is one … Continue Reading
‘My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man’. For a generation (or two), Alan Bennett’s ‘Beyond the Fringe’ spoof of a pious sermon summed up everything that was dull about Bible reading and preaching in church. In this generation we have different challenges: dull monotone; or perhaps the ‘high rising … Continue Reading
One of the lectionary readings set for this Sunday is expressed thus: ‘Revelation 22.12-14, 16, 17, 20, 21’. It is a very odd set of references—but the moment you look at the passage you can see what is going on. I have put in bold the verses that are omitted. “Look, I am coming soon! … Continue Reading
In 2013 we moved to our current home, which was built in 1850 as a square farmhouse in what was then part of a rural village outside Nottingham. One of the changes we made quite soon after moving in was to restore the historic kitchen garden, which had been planted over for the previous 20 … Continue Reading
If the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead is the most important and foundational truth of the Christian faith, how come the New Testament accounts of the resurrection and Jesus’ appearances are so contradictory? That is a relatively widespread response in atheist/apologetic circles, and I think amongst Muslim critics of the Christian faith. … Continue Reading
Ian Paul: theologian, author, speaker, academic consultant. Associate Senior Research Fellow, Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology; Associate Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General Synod and Archbishops' Council. Mac user; chocoholic. Tweets at @psephizo
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