A Virtual File Cabinet for Our Studies of Christian Origins & Hebraic Faith
By Jim Palmer from his Facebook post. Emphasis is mine. Christianity did not simply misunderstand Jesus. It reversed his message. Instead of preserving Jesus as an example of what it means to become fully human, Christianity steadily elevated him beyond humanity itself. It transformed him into a cosmic exception: born of a virgin, the only […]
Continue ReadingThis post contains Terry Traster’s 7/8/2026, response to my comments at Tabor’s Circle site. Along with his comments as pasted below he attached a PDF for the book (500+ pages) he references: Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity:Palestine 330 BCE – 200 CE. That file named “Tal Ilan Lexicon.pdf” is in the Names in […]
Continue Reading7/4/2026 – Extracts from the study The Household of Joseph and Clopas – The Family of Jesus and the Case that Joseph Was Alphaeus by Dr. Terry Traster, Pharm.D. Abstract This study reconstructs the family of Jesus as a single multigenerational household and argues, within that frame, that Joseph the husband of Mary was the […]
Continue ReadingThis post has two responses from Claude.ai beginning with a summary of Andrew Lincoln’s article “How Babies Were Made in Jesus’ Time” (Biblical Archaeology Review 40.6, 2014), drawn from his book Born of a Virgin? Reconceiving Jesus in the Bible, Tradition and Theology. The PDF of the article is in Dropbox/Christianity/Virgin Birth directory. Core argument […]
Continue ReadingThis post contains extracts from The Geochemistry of Intrusive Sediment Sampled from the 1st Century CE Inscribed Ossuaries of James and the Talpiot Tomb, Jerusalem by Aryeh E. Shimron, Moshe Shirav, Kevin T. Kilty, Ludwik Halicz1, Rolf B. Pedersen, Harald Furnes. A PDF copy of the report is in the James Tabor/James Ossuary directory. The […]
Continue ReadingThis post is a focused summary by Claude.ai on 6/27/2026 of the report Open Journal of Geology > Vol.4 No.3, March 2014 titled The Authenticity of the James Ossuary A PDF of the report is in Tabor’s directory in the subdirectory ‘James Ossuary’. The following Aramaic inscription appears on one of the long outer walls of the […]
Continue ReadingThe Roman World of Jesus: A Historical Overview, posted by James Tabor. The transcript’s MS Word version is in his Dropbox Directory. Extracted Opening: Copyright 1982 by Norman Perrin and Dennis During. This article, with very minor modifications, was written by Dennis Duling, Professor Emeritus of Canisius College. It was published in the 2nd edition of […]
Continue ReadingJesus was not interested in creating Christians. Read More. Somewhere along the way, people replaced the challenge of embodiment with the safety of devotion. It became easier to worship Jesus than to live as he lived. Easier to admire the Buddha than to undergo the kind of inner confrontation his path required. Religion turned living […]
Continue ReadingFrom Claude.ai on 6/1/2026 for the prompt: List other places in John where the author uses the literary device of a deliberate misunderstanding. The literary pattern in John is remarkably consistent: the Johannine Jesus says something, one or more other characters misunderstand him, and Jesus slowly brings the dialogue partner(s) to a deeper understanding. The […]
Continue ReadingFrom Claude.ai on 6/1/2026. This is a rich and genuinely fascinating area of critical scholarship. Here is a thorough breakdown: John 3:3 — Anothen: “Born Again” or “Born from Above”? The verse in question, using your preferred NRSV translation, reads: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being […]
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