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As a genre, Greek tragedy was highly valued in 1st-century society, with the plays of 5th and 4th century BC Athens being continuously performed in theatres and studied in Graeco-Roman education as an essential area of knowledge. Herod the Great made a particular effort to introduce Graeco-Roman theatre in Jerusalem... The Gospel of Mark, in particular, has a structure that closely resembles that of a Greek tragic play. According to Aristotle’s Poetics, the structure of the plot is vital when classifying a work as tragic drama, even more so than characterization. The structure of the plot in a Greek tragedy...

Richard Dawkins casts the Old Testament God as: "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction - a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." (The God Delusion) Dawkins’ description is extreme and one sided, but even Christians struggle...We know that he is the God of life not death, creation not violence, mercy not destruction... Christians take several approaches to the violence of the Old Testament. 1. We can reject the depictions of God here as inconsistent with God as revealed in Jesus...However, this approach is to be rejected because...

How can Jesus still be active, given that He is dead (albeit now resurrected)? This is Luke’s starting point in Acts. Jesus’ Resurrection is more than simply a return of life from death...Rather, His victory over death is followed by a royal Ascension through which He is exalted and enthroned at the right hand of God, from where He sends out His Spirit and begins an active reign. For Luke and the early Christians, Jesus’ Ascension was more than an exit; it was an entry into the heavenly throne room from which He directs the course of history and the...

“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works... This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.... God raised him up, because it was not possible for him to be held by it... “Brothers, I may say to you about the patriarch David...knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ..." Now when...

"For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, And all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, And all ate the same spiritual food, And all drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ."In I Cor. 10:1-4, Paul indicated clearly that the history of the children of Israel is a type, a foreshadowing, of the history of the New Testament believers in Christ. The crossing of the Red...

There are several instances in the Old Testament (and one or two in the N/T) where we read that David was not allowed to build a temple for God: 1 Chronicles 22:8: "But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to My name, because you have shed so much blood on the earth before Me." And this: 1 Chronicles 28:3: "But God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for My name because you are a man of war and...

The Bible is more concerned with the theological meaning of circumcision than its ethnic significance. First commanded to Abraham, circumcision in the Bible does not constitute the brit (covenant) itself, but is the most permanent ot (sign) of someone who undertakes to live in covenant with God. Without this commitment, circumcision carries only surgical meaning; and without circumcision, the Bible’s commandments that were intended to be suffused with higher religious dimension lose their value. The circumcision of the flesh is also a picture of the greatest circumcision need – that of the heart... Only God can perform a circumcision of...

“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.“ - Acts 10:34 The Jewish members of the young church could have known that God's covenant promise is for all peoples, for it was already in the old dispensation that the Lord had promised His grace to the entire world. The prophet Joel, for example, predicts: "it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered" (Joel 2:32). And Matthew reminds his readers of another Old Testament prophecy, when...

God gave Moses instruction on how to create the Golden Menorah to light up the Tabernacle. The Lampstand See Exodus 25:31 "And Being in agony, He prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" Luke 22:44 Only the purest of olive oil was used to light up the menorah.

Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho over 1,000 years before Jesus was born, and somehow this Gentile sex worker ended up in the genealogy of Jesus himself as recorded in Matthew 1:5: “Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.” Joshua 2 reports that a couple of Israelite men (Israel = God’s chosen people) showed up to scope out the city of Jericho, which God told them to overtake in an upcoming battle. They go to a prostitute’s house (ummm…) near the entrance to the city and meet Rahab. She helps the men who come to...

In the first part of this article, we noted that God has created everything. Nothing exists without Him. This position is clearly supported in the Scriptures just as the case for His omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent nature is also supported. These are matters which are beyond question if one studies and accepts the Scriptures responsibly. All that being so, it’s tempting to feel that if an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God really exists, then evil should not. If God is who the Bible claims He is, then how does evil fit in? This awkward truce of disparate truths is not...

Part 1: An Apparent Contradiction of Logic An unsettling question may arise when one ponders the implications of John 1:3 which states, “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” That unsettling question is, “Did God create evil?” Let’s step back a few paces to get a big-picture view. After each sequence of bringing the heavens and earth into existence in Genesis chapter 1, God considered His creative work to be good. Over and over, it is repeated, “And God saw that it was good.” The point is...

Barren women dominate the biblical narrative, and by no means are these women perfect. Sarai, Abraham’s wife, displayed unbelief, impatience, anger, and disrespect after waiting a lifetime for children. Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, waited twenty years to have a son. Leah and Rachel, sisters, married to Jacob, spent years in competition and felt deep envy towards one another. Hannah, the wife of Elkanah, was taunted for years by Peninnah and experienced depression. Elizabeth, wife of Zachariah, and Samson’s mother, wife to Manoah, both stood firm in their faith even when their husbands doubted God’s plans. The Shunammite woman begged...

“Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly. Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house. The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with” (Proverbs 17:12-14).

You might not think of MIT as a place for Bible school, but the college is hosting a deep dive into the scriptures.The Massachusetts Institute of Technology houses a Rainbow Lounge, run by the school’s LGBTQ+ Services. The department describes itself as “an intercultural campus resource for diverse gender, romantic, and sexual identities.”Every Thursday, LBGTQ+ Services teams with Harvard University for a Christian devotion.The MIT/Harvard Queer Bible Study sign-up page welcomes participants thusly:Hi there! We’re so excited that you’re interested in joining us for Bible study this spring. Through a careful and generous engagement with the Gospel of Mark, we...

A bandleader at Leesburg High School in Florida resigned amid an investigation after he was accused of operating a 'cult-like' group for students that masqueraded as a Bible study group. Gabriel Fielder would allegedly invite teens to his 13-acre farm, on the outskirts of Leesburg, 40 miles north west of Orlando, where the high schoolers would be forced to do manual labor to prepare for, what Fielder claimed, was the approaching apocalypse. The bandleader also reportedly ordered the teens to pay tithes - compulsory donations made to a church - to his group, known as The Elder Council, reports The...

Marina Hofman, Ph.D., is a homeschool mom to a sweet 3-year-old daughter, Willow, and shares with us how the inspiring examples of mothers in the Bible are models of courage and faith amid opposition and teach us about faith, life, and parenting. She is also a Bible professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, award-winning author of Women In The Bible Small Group Bible Study, and President of Moms for America’s Palm Beach County chapter. JF: Tell us about the miracle of your daughter, Willow?

Thanks for joining our study. Today we begin a two-part series on what the Bible says about Satan in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and next week in the New Testament. First, let's review the various names attributed to "the being" responsible for introducing evil into the world and who is the personification of evil. Most often, he is called Satan or the Devil. A deceiver whose goal is to separate you from God and trick you into sinning against others, yourself, and by default, the Almighty. In the commentary "What Are Some of the Different Titles of Satan?" author...

Thanks for joining our Palm Sunday Bible study. I am blessed to write about this profound event for the third year and will repeat an amusing personal story. Up until my early twenties, I thought Palm Sunday was about glorifying palm trees, and Good Friday was a Friday in spring that was "good." My theological excuse is that having been born and raised Jewish, no one ever told me the real meaning of both days, and I never bothered to ask. Now, my prior ignorance appears to be more the norm. With church attendance and Bible study declining, millions don't...

News Flash: The first 56 volumes are compiled into a book titled “Bible Study For Those Who Don’t Read The Bible.”Thanks for joining us. Today we study a Bible passage encompassed in the lyrics of a 1960’s classic rock song. Could it be, “Ebony and Ivory living together in perfect harmony side by side on my piano keyword, oh Lord, why don’t we?” No, because that 1982 song is not the Word of God, but a nice sentiment nonetheless.The correct answer is The Byrds’ 1965’s hit, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” based on Old Testament verses from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. So here is...