This site contains my collection of extracts, links, and our understanding of various topics related to internet sources for the origin of Christianity, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and related beliefs. You are welcome to look around, but understand that this site is only a personal space for things we need to access and things we want to be reminded of, like the quotes below.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” by Samuel Beckett, the Irish novelist and playwright from his 1983 prose work Worstward Ho.
If you believe Paul saw Jesus on the road to Damascus, why couldn’t Joseph Smith meet an angel almost 2000 years later?
“Emmaus never happens. Emmaus always happens.” – John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 197.
“There is no such thing as translation without interpretation.” – Classic saying in Biblical studies
“If you don’t understand Judaism in the days of Jesus, there is no way to understand Jesus.” ― Bart D. Ehrman
“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross.” Dorothy Sayer’s essay, Are Women Human?
“I have always thought of the historical Jesus as a homeland Jew within Judaism within the Roman Empire. For me, then, within Judaism within the Roman Empire has always been the absolutely necessary matrix rather than the annoyingly unnecessary background for any discussion of earliest Christianity.” John Dominic Crossan
“When we read Paul, we are reading somebody else’s mail—and unless we know the situation being addressed, his letters can be quite opaque…It is wise to remember that when we are reading letters never intended for us, any problems of understanding are ours and not theirs.”
― Marcus J. Borg, Read More
“If you understand it, it is not God; if you are able to grasp it, it is not God.” Augustine, Sermon 117.5
“Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us the dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (G.K. Chesterton)
“A myth is a story that never happened, but is always happening.” (David Wolpe)
“Is it true? Yes. Did it happen? No.” (Bart Ehrman)
“Parables do not ask you to interpret them. Parables interpret you.” (A.J. Levine)
Contemporary apocalypticism, among the other psychosocial phenomena, is in part a revenge fantasy in which the folks who fancy themselves to be the righteous of God look forward to their enemies in the culture war suffering an unpleasant eschatological fate. — Charles Bledsoe on BSA.
“The search for truth takes you where the evidence leads you, even if, at first, you don’t want to go there.” — Bart D. Ehrman, Forged
A coincidence is just God’s way of remaining anonymous. – Anonymous
“To believe in God is to reckon with life’s creative forces, tendencies, and potentialities as forming an organic unity, and as giving meaning to life by virtue of that unity.” Mordecai Kaplan.
“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Anonymous. Incorrectly attributed to C.S. Lewis.
“Is it True: Yes; Did it happen: No”. “Truth is not necessarily fact.” A story that isn’t factual can still embody a truth.
William Ellery Channing’s 1819 Speech touches on his views about the Bible; such as his view that the “leading principle in interpreting Scripture is this, that the Bible is a book written for men, in the language of men, and that its meaning is to be sought in the same manner as that of other books”.
Drink water where the horse drinks. A horse will never drink bad water. Make your bed where the cat sleeps peacefully. Eat fruit that has been touched by an earthworm. Fearlessly collect mushrooms where insects perch. Plant a tree where the mole digs. Build a house where the vipers bask in the sun. Dig a hole where the birds hide from the heat. Go to sleep and get up at the same time as the birds, you will reap the golden grains of life. Eat more green, you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the soul of the forests. Look at the sky more often and talk less, so that silence can enter your heart, your spirit is calm and your life is filled with peace. – Unknown.
We romanticize and sanitize their life and world. – Dr. Cynthia Shafer-Elliott
Clint Eastwood, 94-year-old actor legend, formulated one of the most important lessons of his life so far for the young generation: “Don’t look for luxury in watches or bracelets, don’t look for luxury in villas or sailboats! Luxury is laughter and friends, luxury is rain on your face, luxury is hugs and kisses. Don’t look for luxury in shops, don’t look for it in gifts, don’t look for it in parties, don’t look for it in events! Luxury is being loved by people, luxury is being respected, luxury is having your parents alive, luxury is being able to play with your grandchildren. Luxury is what money can’t buy.“
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”
“The Bible is not a univocal text” and “everybody is negotiating with the text.”
Hosea 11:9 does use “El” (אֵל) rather than the more common “Elohim” (אֱלֹהִים) or “YHWH” (יהוה).
As the French philosopher once said, “God created man in his own image, and man, being the gentleman he was, returned the favor.”
“What people tend to believe is more rooted in what appeals to them, rather than the truth.”
If God inspired the Book of Mark to be a book, then you should read it as a book. Dr. Bart Ehrman
Isra-El means “The one who struggles with God,”
“A fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something,” George Marsden.
” …he was more invested in his relationship with God than with his doctrines. And he had no problems acknowledging the mysteries of the universe that could not be solved and were best left in God’s hands.” Bart Ehrman about his mentor and professor Bruce Metzger here.
“Jesus proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, but all we got was the church!” – 19th-century Catholic theologian Alfred Loisy
“There’s nothing wrong with having a third-grade understanding of the Bible, … as long as you’re in the third grade!” Unknown
“God reveals Itself despite one’s religion — not because of it.” Unknown
All things we undertake must contain integrity, compassion, elegance,
“Knowledge is having the right answer, while intelligence is asking the right questions
“You can treat life as ordinary or treat life as a miracle.” – Albert Einstein
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
Strive on indeed, and be sure that it is not you that is mortal, but only your body. For that man whom your outward form reveals is not yourself; the spirit is the true self, not that physical figure that can be pointed out by the finger. – Cicero, first century BCE
Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. – Psalm 37:1-4
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. – Jeremiah 17:7-8.
“Frugality is the Mother of all Virtues” – Justinian, Roman Emperor
“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, then having the two as close together as possible.” – George Burns
Never Forget – Don’t Let The Old Man In!
