‘The biblical God requires child sacrifices for his pleasure’
This is the strange theory advanced by John Loftus in chapter 4 of God or ...
‘The Ten Worst Verses of the Bible’
I think it was back in 2009 that the Ship of Fools website reported on its ...
“Science is no substitute for religion”
We're up to chapter 5 of God or Godless, by John Loftus (atheist) and Randal ...
“The biblical God commanded genocide”
At last, in chapter 6 of God or Godless?, we have a real problem to debate. ...
Bart Ehrman, the text of the New Testament, and axe-grinding
"Everyone loves a conspiracy theory" was one of the more sensible statements ...
Bart Ehrman’s ‘Top Ten’ spurious verses
In his book Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman lists ten 'top verses that were not ...
Disappointed with Jesus
A recent (20th August 2011) edition of Premier Radio's Unbelievable show featured ...
Do the resurrection accounts add up?
The difficulties involved in reconciling the details of the resurrection narrative ...
Genesis 22 – “Abraham, kill your son”
The account (in Genesis 22) of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only ...
Genesis 3 – traditional and revisionist readings
I must admit that I'm not sure about where to place Genesis 3 on a scale between ...
Handling Bible difficulties
In The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe identify ...
Intentional ‘contradictions’ in John’s writings
In Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and ...
Jesus: a ‘new and improved’ Moses?
Should we regard the Old Testament and the New Testament as continuous, or ...
Judges 19:11-28 – The priest and the concubine
As evidence for the nastiness of the Old Testament and its God, Richard Dawkins (The ...
Large numbers in the Old Testament
To the reader who is inclined to take Old Testament history seriously, the ...
Matthew 8:5/Luke 7:3 – Who asked Jesus to help?
Matthew (Mt 8:5-12) and Luke (Lk 7:1-10) both have an account of a Roman centurion ...
Old Testament violence: yes, let’s apply the hermeneutic of Jesus
Christian writers of a certain stripe seem to be queueing up to say pretty ...
Once again: the destruction of the Canaanites
The Bible records several acts of hostility that would be probably regarded ...
Rethinking slavery in the Old Testament
'Slavery' is one of those words that tends to prompt a knee-jerk reaction. ...
Seven Synoptic ‘Problems’
Writing on the Historical Reliability of the Gospels in Dictionary of Jesus ...
The abominations of the heathen
Some crucial passages are: Deut 7:1-5; cf Ex 23:23ff; Deut 20:16-18. Although ...
The destruction of the Canaanites
The destruction of the Canaanites is one of the most perplexing of the ethical ...
The destruction of the Canaanites: what does the New Testament say?
With regard to the parts of the Old Testament that record, encourage, or even ...
The domesticated Bible
Going back over some back issues of Third Way magazine, I came across a piece ...
The Sceptic’s Annotated Bible
The Sceptic's Annotated Bible (SAB) is a god-send for Christians. If you ...
Those imprecatory psalms
The Psalms are the best-loved and most-used part of the Old Testament. But ...
Urban legends of the Old Testament
Having compiled a couple of sets relating to texts in the New Testament, I ...
When, and where, was Jesus born?
How does 'main-stream' critical scholarship deal with the biblical narratives ...
Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?
The account of the ten plagues of Egypt frequently refers to the 'hardening' ...