A Virtual File Cabinet for Our Studies of Christian Origins & Hebraic Faith
My vocational passion is adult theological re-education at the congregational level. I think it’s vital in our time… I’ve often thought Jesus was fortunate to have been executed before the gospels were written can you imagine if those manuscripts were already out there and he came into a small town and told them the parable […]
Continue ReadingSee Did God Write the Torah — and Does it Matter? For many Jews, the Torah’s authority does not derive from being a divine document. by Marc Zvi Brettler at MyJewishLearning.com. The article is in a Word doc in DropBox’s folder “Jewish Topics”. Claude.ai was asked to summarize the article and that summary is pasted […]
Continue ReadingFrom Chat GPT’s summary of my transcript of Marcus Borg’s lecture “Jesus Today: The Legacy of Albert Schweitzer” By Chat GPT – Here’s a two-page practical outline of Marcus Borg’s “Jesus Today: The Legacy of Albert Schweitzer”—kept tight for teaching or discussion, and includes all scriptural references Borg used or explained. Outline – Marcus Borg […]
Continue ReadingThe Evolution of the Idea of God in the Bible—The Evolution of a Relationship With an Imaginary Friend, or an Actually-Existing God? by Charles Bledsoe. Posted at BSA on Oct 17, 2025. [Below is his post for which he is the author and it is posted here for my personal reference only.] From my theological […]
Continue Reading10/30/2025 – This page contains ChatGPT’s summary of my transcript (in DropBox) of Megan’s interview of Bart Ehrman. Summary of the file in Dropbox named “Bart – Matthew’s Forgotten Resurrection” Megan Lewis’ Initial Reading (Matthew 27:51–53)Megan Lewis begins by quoting the passage from Matthew that describes events at Jesus’ death: “The curtain of the temple […]
Continue ReadingA: During the Hasmonean/Maccabean period, when they needed laws, and took up the laws written by the past scribes who wanted the average folks to obey, but few had done so. [my understanding] “When did Judaism begin?” is not a naive question. Every answer to this question would require presenting an acceptable definition of Judaism. […]
Continue ReadingBelow are significant comments to a question posted at BSA in October 2025. The extracts pasted below are in the same order as the overall post at BSA. All emphasis is mine. Original Question summarized: Why the trinity at all? Why not a duality: The Father and Son? Why did Christians find it necessary to […]
Continue ReadingDifferences in the Two Creation Stories [In addition to the information below, see the Genesis page on this site.] From OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com, 11/19/2024 The two creation stories in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis reflect differences in style, content, and emphasis. Scholars often attribute these to different sources: J (Yahwist) and P (Priestly). […]
Continue ReadingFrom ChatGPT on 10/27/2025. “I hold as a core personal belief that one cannot ignore the context, structure, and history of scripture and still take scripture seriously — if it deserves to be understood, then it deserves to be understood on its own terms.” — Schaun Wheeler whose forum member byline at BSA is “Faith […]
Continue ReadingBelow is the ChatGPT summary of Bart Ehrman’s 20-minute initial statement and 10-minute rebuttal in the debate in the YouTube video titled Did Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John really write the four Gospels?. Bart does a great job of explaining why we can be confident that the four gospels in the NT were named later. […]
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