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It is extremely difficult to have a reasonable and intelligent conversation these days about gender. The distinction between male and female is no longer clear and we must talk over the loud and intrusive noise of transgenderism. Nevertheless, in the context of Biblical Anthropology, scientific observations touching on maleness and femaleness can and should be made. These observations focus on two related topics: the male-female relationship and the greater reality to which it points, and the binary logic of the male-female set as it is presented in Scripture. Clearly, this discussion is not for readers whose ground for determining morality...

The New Christian Zionism is a penetrating look at how Christians have framed conversations about Israel as a people and a land in the 20th century. Contributors to the book include Robert Benne, Craig Blaising, Darrell Bock, Mark S. Kinzer, Shadi Khalloul, Gerald R. McDermott, Robert Nicholson, David Rudolph, Mark Tooley, and Joel Willitts. The writers define the "New Christian Zionism" as a theologically-rooted conviction that Israel has a corporate right to exist "with the same human rights and security guarantees that other nations receive" and that God's plan in the future involves Israel as a national entity and as...

From a reader: “I'm a little confused about where you are going with Genesis... Can you give me some hint of where you are going and the purpose of all of this?” Response: My concern is that Genesis be understood at the deepest possible level since the material there is foundational to the whole canon. Genesis should not be forced into a modern mold. We should make the effort to understand what this material meant to the archaic peoples for whom this divine revelation was sacred. One of the best ways to do this is to apply the tools of...

Alice C. Linsley Gay activist Jonathan Charles Rauch describes himself as "an unrepentantly atheistic Jewish homosexual" which is to say that he has completely rejected the traditional wisdom of his ancestors. Jonathan Rauch is so lacking in critical thinking skills as to be dangerous. Rauch’s “Case for Gay Marriage” is full of fallacious arguments, as I have demonstrated to my Ethics students. J. Rauch’s First Premise: Marriage is necessary to providing reliable caregivers. This assumption is not true. It is, in fact, verifiable false since we are able to observe that reliable caregivers exist who are not married to the...

George and I have had several meaningful conversations via email. This one might be of interest to other readers and George gave me permission to reproduce the conversation. George: I want to thank you for your blogs. I read them all the time and they have been a BIG help! I've been trying to sell others on the fact that the Hebrew lettering system goes back further than the 4th century millennium BC thanks to your findings of the Ainu/Annu culture and their lettering system in their later homeland of Japan - but with no success. I definitely believe your...

With the rise of Islamic aggression, many question whether the God of Islam is the God of the Bible and the One revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. To adequately address this question, separate issues must be addressed. They are the linguistic development of ancient names for God found in the Qur'an and the Bible, and the theological distinctions between Islam's understanding of God and the Christian understanding of God. Linguistic Development The oldest known name for the Creator in the Bible is El (ʾēl) which corresponds to the Proto-Semitic ʔ-L. The L likely was a symbol of a...

The word jihad means "striving" or "struggle." The word describes different types of struggles such as "jihad of the pen" (promotion of Islam), "jihad of the heart" (struggle against doubt), and jihad that involves violence to advance Islam. There is no Hebrew equivalent to the word jihad. The Hebrew word with the closest meaning is tsaba which refers to struggle, army and warfare. The idea that the Bible advocates jihad is Islamic propaganda. It represents an attempt to blame the Bible for the very crimes committed daily by Islamic extremists. The Islamic writer, Khaula Rehman writes, "There are no verses...

According her testimony in the Hadith, Muhammad physically struck his favorite wife Aisha for leaving the house without his permission. His less-favored wives would have fared no better. Aisha narrates, "He struck me on the chest which caused me pain." Muhammad's wife complained of the abuse that Muslim women suffered relative to other women. "Aisha said, 'I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women.'" (Bukhari (72:715) Of course, she did not live to see the abuse of Christian and Yazidi women at the hands of ISIS. Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradhawi, a famous Sunni cleric, said here...

This remarkable seal or bulla of the Judean King Hezekiah was discovered by Efrat Greenwald at the Ophel, an ancient dump beside the wall that surrounds Jerusalem's Old City. This bulla was found with 33 additional bullae, many pottery sherds and figurines in Area A of the 2009 excavation season supervised by Hagai Cohen-Klonymus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This is the first seal impression of an Israelite or Judean king ever exposed in situ in a scientific archaeological excavation. Initial inspection failed to recognize the seal's importance and it was put in storage. Recently the bulla was identified by...

Katherine Jefferts Schori has opined that Islam, Judaism and Christianity are "Abrahamic faiths" and are therefore on an equal footing. However, Islam claims that it is not like Judaism and Christianity. Consider this teaching of Islam: "Asserting one's religion does not mean that you simply leave people to worship whatever they please without comment, like the Christians and the Jews do. It means that you must clearly and plainly disapprove of what they worship, and show enmity towards the disbelievers; failing this there is no assertion of Islam." (From Al Wala' wa'l Bara by Muhammad Sa'eed Al Qahtani) Al-wala' wa'l-bara...

Apologists for Islam claim that Islamic terrorism is the work of a few religious fanatics. In truth, devout Muslims believe they have a duty to expand the rule of Islam. They justify abuse of "infidels" and "idolaters" and under the right circumstance, any one of them can be turned to violence. The most prominent leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, admitted that the "killing of apostates is essential for Islam to survive." He simply is reiterating what is said in the Quran. "If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him." Quran 3:85...

Alice C. Linsley Biblical anthropology seeks to understand antecedents and explores the beliefs of Abraham's cattle-herding Nilo-Saharan ancestors. Until we better understand their beliefs and religious practices we will continue to impose incorrect or inadequate interpretations on the Bible. David Noel Freedman wrote, "The Hebrew Bible is the one artifact from antiquity that not only maintained its integrity but continues to have a vital, powerful effect thousands of years later." Anthropologists and archaeologists turn to the Bible for clues and data. Very often this has led to wonderful discoveries! The material in the Bible clearly has been divinely superintended through...

Biblical anthropology seeks to understand antecedents and explores the beliefs of Abraham's cattle-herding Nilo-Saharan ancestors. Until we better understand their religious practices we will continue to impose incorrect or inadequate interpretations on the Bible. David Noel Freedman has said: “The Hebrew Bible is the one artifact from antiquity that not only maintained its integrity but continues to have a vital, powerful effect thousands of years later.” The Bible contains material older than the first civilizations. The king lists of Genesis 4 and 5 are an example. Anthropological analysis of the kinship pattern of these ruler-priest lines has shown them to...

Messianic expectation predates Abraham and appears to have originated among the priest caste that served in the temples and shrines of archaic Eden which stretched from ancient Nubia to Syria. Some of these priests were called Horim or Horites, and they were known in the ancient world for their purity of life. The Horite priests were an extremely ancient caste going back to biblical Eden. It was to their ancestors that the Creator made the promise that a woman of their ruler-priests lines would conceive the Seed of the Creator (Gen. 3:15) by divine overshadowing. This is called the "Edenic...

Anglicans have held to the Roman account of the priesthood as an order originating with Jesus' Apostles. This idea was beautifully developed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict), who wrote: Of great importance for our question is the fact that Jesus gave His power to the Apostles in such a way that He made their ministry, as it were, a continuation of His own mission. "He who receives you receives me". He Himself says to the Twelve (Mt 10:40; cf. Lk 10:16; Jn 13:10). Many other texts in which Jesus gives His power to the disciples could here be...

Mining in Cornwall and Devon in the south west of England began as early as 2150 BC. The Ding Dong mine is one of the oldest mines in Cornwall. An old miner told A. K. Hamilton Jenkin in the early 1940's: "Why, they do say there's only one mine in Cornwall older than Dolcoath, and that's Ding Dong, which was worked before the time of Jesus Christ." (Hamilton Jenkin, A. K. Cornwall and its People. London: J. M. Dent; p. 347) Hawkins, Christopher Hawkins wrote a book titled Observations on the Tin Trade of the Ancients in Cornwall (1811) in...

In Part 1 we considered the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox accounts of the origins of the Church of England. The information provided in Part 1 was taken from official websites of each of these branches of the catholic Faith. There is only point on which all three accounts agree: Augustine was the official representative of Rome and was based in Canterbury. So it is that the Britons were claimed as a Roman franchise. That historical reality has had ramifications beyond Henry VIII and the Reformation. The Roman narrative has dominated the conversation for so long that the deficiencies...

Depending on who is telling the story, accounts differ as to when the priesthood came to the British Isles. Anglicans tend to give this account: Christianity arrived in the British Isles around AD 47 according to Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Christians likely entered as metal workers and traders traveling long the tin route between Spain and Ireland. The earliest historical evidence of Christianity among the native Britons is found in the writings of such early Christian Fathers as Tertullian and Origen in the first years of the 3rd century. In the 1st or 2nd century, southern Britain became...

Sufficient historical, anthropological and archaeological evidence exists to justify the hypothesis that astronomy, mathematics, medicine and mummification, binary thought and triangulation (pyramids), metal work, cultivation techniques, the earliest priestly writings, and the earliest known trade records are found among the Proto-Saharans of the Upper Nile. Plato wrote that Nilotic scribes had been keeping astronomical records for 1000 years. He should know since he studied with a Horite priest in Memphis for 13 years. None of the advancements I listed above can be positively identified with any one ancient figure. Instead they are connected to great rulers and their scribes, priests...

My Roman Catholic friend, Michael Liccione, has written on his Facebook page that "the main disagreement among American Catholics is not about whether we should believe 'all that the Holy Catholic Church believes, professes, and teaches,' but which teachings we may safely disbelieve." I responded, "Aggiornamento has that effect on us! There is an interesting parallel between the Roman Catholic Church in the USA and the Anglicans in the USA in that liturgical reform suggested to many that the historic Catholic faith had changed. The Vatican II liturgical changes and the Episcopal Church's 1979 prayer book changed words and forms....