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Goliath, (c. 11th century bc), in the Bible (I Sam. xvii), the Philistine giant slain by David, who thereby achieved renown. The Philistines had come up to make war against Saul, and this warrior came forth day by day to challenge to single combat. Only David ventured to respond, and armed with a sling and pebbles he overcame Goliath Only David ventured to respond, and armed with a sling and pebbles he overcame Goliath. The Philistines, seeing their champion killed, lost heart and were easily put to flight. The giant’s arms were placed in the sanctuary, and it was his...

Good evening!I'm a day late on this (been working some ridiculous hours). However I finally got home from work early enough to post this week's "Why the New Testament Was Written" vlog. This week, in part 9, we're talking about why Paul Wrote I Timothy.Why Paul Wrote I TimothyVideo clocks in at 11:31. Normally with first-and-second books of the New Testament we talk about both in one video, but Paul wrote to Timothy twice for very different reasons. This also gave me a chance to talk about gnosticism, which some historians believe originated in Ephesus and was the false doctrine...

Pastor Andy Stanley says the Bible is too hard to defend Evangelical pastor preaches that the Bible isn’t the foundation for the Christian faith by Lita Cosner and Scott Gillis Published: 22 September 2016 (GMT+10) Andy Stanley has a church network of over 30,000 people in the Atlanta area, and his church was rated the fastest-growing in America in 2014 and 2015.1 Recently, he has been criticized by many evangelicals for saying that we need to take the focus off the Bible and put it on the Resurrection, because he claims that gives us a firmer foundation for our faith....

Whenever there's an archaeological discovery related to the Bible, conflicting interpretations by various experts can leave a believer's head spinning. Take the discovery in Israel of a palace from the era of King David earlier this year. An archaeologist from Hebrew University in Jerusalem said there's "unequivocal evidence" that David and his descendants ruled at the site. But critics, including some committed believers, say it could have belonged to other kingdoms and that David's palace likely would have been in Jerusalem some 18 miles northwest. Still others claim there is no archaeological evidence that David even existed. Similar confusion ensued...

While [King Henry VIII] was still Catholic, William Tyndale sought permission to translate the Bible into English so that even “a boy who drives the plow” might know Scripture. Permission was denied, and Tyndale moved to Germany where he completed the first translation of the English New Testament made from Greek. It was published in 1526, and over the next ten years 50,000 copies were smuggled into England. Tyndale was betrayed, captured, and in 1536 killed for the crime of publishing the New Testament in English. Although his body was burned at the stake, Tyndale had unleashed an enormous demand...

The Biblical Archaeological Review, by no means a conservative Christian magazine, recently published a surprising article by Yosef Garfinkel entitled, “The Birth and Death of Biblical Minimalism.” While Garfinkel limits his discussion to the last 30 years among certain modern archaeologists working at the University of Copenhagen, biblical minimalism is the general presumption that the Biblical text cannot be a trusted source of actual verifiable history, especially with regard to the authenticity of the Old Testament. Garfinkel shows in his article that the minimalist position is no longer a viable one. Too much archaeological evidence has been uncovered. While this...

This is a precious story of Jonah as told by a little girl: http://vimeo.com/16404771 Prepare to be amazed. It will warm your heart, to be sure. -- Jane Reinheimer

Where is Mt. Sinai? And does it matter? The second question is easier to answer than the first. If God's giving the Ten Commandments to Moses there is a historical event then yes, wanting to attach a genuine geographical location to the mountain makes sense. But finding Mt. Sinai presents a problem different from locating the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, or the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Unlike those two holy sites, Mt. Sinai's exact location isn't attested by any clear tradition among the people you would expect to be most likely to remember -- that is, the people...

Caught Between A Rock And A Reed's Trace. The Amarna letters are a collection of more than 300 cuneiform tablets discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt in the late 1800s. Dating to the Late Bronze Age (1500-1150 B.C.E.), the archive consists of royal correspondence of Pharaoh Amenophis III (1391-1353 B.C.E.) and his son, Pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenophis IV, 1353-1337 B.C.E.) with local rulers of various Canaanite city-states. This tablet (catalogued as EA 289) and several others were sent to the pharaoh by 'Abdi-Heba, the ruler of Urusalim (Jerusalem), indicating that there was a significant city at the site in the 14th...

What's the over/under on this guy's life span?..... MÜNSTER, Germany --Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn't like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life. So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed. Muslims, not surprisingly, are outraged. Even Danish cartoonists who triggered global protests a couple of years ago didn't portray the Prophet as fictional. German...

Muhammad Sven Kalisch is an Islamic researcher at the University of Münster. He is also the first person in Germany to hold a Chair of Islamic Religion. Kalisch's recent public admission that he is unsure whether the Prophet Muhammad was actually a historical person has got him into hot water. The plan to train teachers to teach Islamic religious education at German schools has suffered a major setback in recent days. The Co-ordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM), to which the four largest Muslim organisations in Germany belong, has discontinued its co-operation with the Centre for Religious Studies at...

This new media reality has introduced what I call "conversation stoppers" for Christians. Conversation stoppers are those questions that nearly everyone on the street knows to ask when the sensitive subject of Jesus comes up. They might say, "Well, what about all those other Gospels that never made it into the Bible?" Or, "Don't you know that history is written by the winners, and now that we can hear the losers, we need to revise the Bible's story?" What Christians often do is get angry or talk about the media's attempt to undercut our faith. Neither reaction accomplishes much. The...

The Maccabees - (166-129 BCE) - By Mitchell Bard The death of Alexander the Great of Greece in 323 BCE led to the breakup of the Greek empire as three of his generals fought for supremacy and divided the Middle East among themselves. Ptolemy secured control of Egypt and the Land of Israel. Seleucus grabbed Syria and Asia Minor, and Antigonus took Greece. Palestine was sandwiched between the two rivals and for the next 125 years Seleucids and Ptolemies battled for the prize. The former finally won in 198 B.C. when Antiochus III defeated the Egyptians and incorporated Judea into...