A Virtual File Cabinet for Our Studies of Christian Origins & Hebraic Faith
From Claude on 10/21/2026. Herod Agrippa and Herod Antipas were members of the same Herodian dynasty, which ruled parts of the eastern Mediterranean under Roman authority. However, they belonged to different generations, governed different territories, and played different roles in the history of Jesus and the earliest Christian movement. The most important distinction is that […]
Continue ReadingThis post contains this link to the article Recounting the Census: A Military Force of 5,500 (not 603,550) Men by Prof. Ben-Zion Katz M.D. for which a Claude.ai summary is below. The article poses various scholars arguments that the interpretation of 600,000 is wrong. Below that is a prompt/response from Perplexity computing how many generations […]
Continue ReadingYale University’s David Gelernter Yale University’s David Gelernter—one of America’s most respected computer scientists—has become an unexpected but influential critic of Darwin’s evolutionary theory. His shift is not ideological but analytical: after decades of studying complex systems, probability, and biological discoveries, Gelernter concluded that Darwin’s model no longer fits the scientific evidence. As he famously […]
Continue ReadingThis post contains most of James Tabor’s post on 9/20/26 sharing the story and his interpretation of the scriptures. After Tabor’s post is the relevant scriptures from Leviticus 16, Legacy Standard Bible. All emphasis is mine. “Being “washed in the blood of the lamb” has become a more appealing cultural image in our Christian imagination, […]
Continue ReadingThis post is follow up to the post and Genesis 49-50 with scholar’s insights into the cave, whose buried there, and more. Prompt to ChatGPT: In Genesis 49, Jacob wants to be buried in Machpelah. Where is that? Response: Machpelah is traditionally identified with a burial cave at Hebron, in the southern hill country of […]
Continue ReadingThis post is a followup to my previous post about Jesus’ Life and Upbring. Summary item 7 in that post cites the two completing lenght’s of his ministry; i.e. Mark/Matthew/Luke vs. John. Item 8 cites Irenaeus belief that Jesus lived into his 40s and info about that is below. This post includes three prompts of […]
Continue ReadingWhy do we accept that Paul’s “visions” were real? Anne Fields Sep 3Questioner Why do scholars accept that Paul had an actual life-changing vision on the road to Damascus, followed by many conversations with the spiritual Jesus, when his resulting beliefs and actions appear to have betrayed Jesus’ original teaching?121 comments10 likes Jeff Geist Sep […]
Continue ReadingThis post contains Claude.ai’s summary of Christina Gousopoulos (University of Toronto), New Testament Studies (2024) paper. The pdf file of the paper is in the “Q Gospel” directory in Dropbox. It is an academic paper in the usual style. Claude was told to prepare the summary for a non-academic.
Continue ReadingFrom Claude.ai on 7/26/2026 – Prompt: Does Crossan, in other documents or interviews, or other critical bible scholars, see differences in the Greek of the we passages and the rest of Luke/Acts? Cite all sources in line. Response: Short answer: yes — this is actually the central pillar of the whole “we-passages” debate, and it […]
Continue ReadingFrom Claude.ai on 7/26/2026. Also see Bart’s post here. Background: Indulgences and Church Corruption By the early sixteenth century, the sale of indulgences—documents claiming to reduce or eliminate the temporal punishment for sin—had become a significant source of controversy in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church’s practice of granting indulgences to provide absolution to sinners […]
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