The Bible isn't a single book. It's a collection of 66 books, written by around 40 writers* over a period of nearly 1500 years. While we don't have personal information about every writer, we do know some things about most of them.
Pseudepigrapha means ‘false writings.’ The title is given to ancient manuscripts and books that claim to have been written by someone, but were not. For example, the Gospel of Thomas wasn’t written by Thomas… someone else wrote it and put Thomas’ name on it. The goal, generally speaking, was to give a document more credibility by attributing it to someone famous.
Pseudepigrapha means 'false writings.' The title is given to ancient manuscripts and books that claim to have been written by someone, but were not. For example, the Apocalypse of Elijah wasn't written by Elijah... someone else wrote it and put Elijah's name on it. The goal, generally speaking, was to give a document more credibility by attributing it to someone famous.
Church leadership is often a contentious topic. Whether the issue has to do with women who preach or with the qualifications - or disqualifications - of ministry, we should see what Scripture says first. The standards for Christian leadership are not unreachable, but they are high... because there's a lot at stake.
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The Tanakh (or Tanach) is the Hebrew Bible... what Christians call the "Old Testament." There are three sections of books: Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim... TNK. These are the same books as in the Christian Bible, but in a different order.
Dispensationalists tend to view all of Scripture as describing different dispensations... that is, different periods of time in which God deals with humanity in different ways. There are, of course, different views within Dispensationalism.
Travis, who serves in his local church, asked me to comment on having a God-centered Men’s Ministry. These are some of my thoughts… specifically for men, but the principles would be the same for any group.
The Council of Nicea (Nicaea) was held in 325 AD in what is now Iznik, Turkey. Roman emperor Constantine invited all Christian bishops to convene, at his expense, to settle some theological conflicts. There are a lot of urban legends about what happened.
Docetism comes from the Greek dokein (to seem). It is the belief that Jesus wasn’t actually human, but only appeared to be human. Docetism was closely related to Gnosticism, which viewed physical matter as inherently evil and spiritual substance as inherently good.
When reading the Bible, we're wise to keep an eye out for repetition. This emphasis points to pivotal moments. God talked to a lot of people in the Bible, from Adam to Zechariah. Here's a list of eight people who, in pivotal moments, God called by name... not once, but twice.
It's commonly believed that all of Jesus' disciples, except John, were martyred... that is, killed for following Jesus. Unfortunately, these events aren't as clear as we'd like them to be. Some seem to be well-attested in history while others rely on traditions, both oral and written.
