Topics about the history, context, and interpretation of the Bible
There is a strange little verse in Genesis that has resulted in all kinds of fantasy novels, films, and unfortunate attempts at theology. That is the story of the Nephilim. Much has been made about them, but the reality is somewhat more literary and less magical. The Nephilim are mentioned in three places in the…
The rapture has once again reared its head with people on social media claiming the rapture was coming which led to some more…gullible…people selling their belongings off cheap. Things like this aren’t new. There have been loads of end-times cults over the millennia. But now TikTok is a thing, its ended up in the popular…
The way that people commonly think about the ‘soul’ – an immortal spirit which is who we really are that dwells in some way ‘within’ us – is not actually Biblical. We do not have souls in the way people frequently use the word. In this blog, I’m going to set out what a biblical…
What happens if we read the Exodus as a story of divine conflict? By reading the Exodus with an explicitly mythological lens, we can gain a new level of meaning. I’m going to briefly outline what that could look like. But it will only be an overview of a very complicated subject with lots of…
Flipping Tables is always a valid answer to what would Jesus do. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, following Jesus does not just mean binding the wounds of those who have suffered from injustice. Sometimes it means putting a spoke into the wheel that is grinding them down. After making his entry into Jerusalem, Jesus went to…
On Palm Sunday we are confronted by the revelation of King Jesus as he begins the revolution. An eternal revolution as the Kingdom of God takes form in the world. The mission of Jesus comes to a climax. The world holds its breath. The dark powers of the world are confronted, exposed and broken by…
Understanding Theopoetics simply means using poetic forms to practice theology, and I have been reflecting on this a lot lately. Poetic Theology – When Prose Fails Sometimes we don’t have the right words to explain what we believe. Sometimes we are confronted with the infinitely unknowable, uncontainable person of God, and find our response utterly…
Bees and Honey are a theme for salvation which run throughout the Bible. There are over 60 references to them. At times they symbolise the bounty and blessing of God, at other times they are a warning of God’s judgement. Ultimately, they are a reminder of the sweetness of God’s kingdom. Judgemental Wasps The first…
In Luke 19, we find the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, the tax collector. This is one of those stories that many of us learned as children. Zacchaeus is a short man who wants to see Jesus, and so climbs a tree. Jesus sees him, calls to him, has dinner with the little reprobate, and…
The main problem is that Jehovah isn’t actually in the Bible. It is a mistake of translation that ended up being used in songs, translations of the Bible, and common parlance. Let’s see how it happened. How Was the Old Testament Written? To start with, we need to understand how the Jewish people wrote and…