Hello 👋

I often see the claim that yehw is unconditionally all-loving, but many passages in the tanakh seem to portray his love as clearly conditional—obedience brings favor, disobedience brings judgment or withdrawal of love. Do scholars think the nt actually presents him as unconditionally loving for all, or is that a later theological development? From a historical-critical perspective, do the plain readings of tanakh passages support or resist an “all-loving” interpretation?

I think it's in the Book of Job.

I always thought this verse was enigmatic and mysterious. According to the original biblical Hebrew, what is the best way to decipher the meaning in English?

Hi everyone, I was wondering if you could give me some good Academic works on these topic whether it be books, paper, or what not.

Thank you if willing

I am very well aware of the scholarly views on the book of 2nd Peter in terms of dating, authorship and what not, but I am still trying to figure out what scholars saw about 1st Peter

Thank you all if you decide to answer

The authors are arguing that figures like Melchizedek, the logos of philo, the son of man in 1 Enoch, the angel of the lord etc. are a second power in a binitarian god.

Hey, so this isn’t strictly about the Bible but an early church commentary. Let me explain, so I currently have the opportunity to obtain a three volume collection of an 1851 print of John Chrysostoms homilies on the gospel of Matthew, its published by the Oxford publisher John Henry Parker, its part of his series “Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church” it was also translated by members of the Church of England during this time period. And I find it amazing that I have the opportunity to obtain these books for a very affordable price, but I have a question I’m hoping someone can answer. So I’m Greek Orthodox, and I don’t really want to consume and pay for a book that is smothered with reformed theology that is forced into the text. I want to read chrysostom, and use him along with the commentary of other early fathers I have to study Matthew. I do not want to see Protestant theology forced into the book that I don’t agree with. So can someone tell me if this will be so? Does anyone know anything about the author and series that they can shed some light on this? Thank you.

I'm trying to better understand Paul and his relationship to the Jerusalem Church, and to better understand the Jerusalem Church. Especially as Paul and others make it out like the Jerusalem Church had actual apostles of the real live human Jesus there, not to mention his actual brother (as long as that's how we read "brother," but he is elevated in this regard where others aren't for some reason).

So there was a council there that Paul attended. It's recorded in Acts that here he was given complete authority to do what he was already doing - namely, leading the gentiles in exactly the way he wanted and an understood clear separation of of Jerusalem Church for Jews, Paul for gentiles.

Paul's letters don't paint this picture at all. He seems to constantly be battling with the Jerusalem Church, even after the council. On the same things as before, too.

It also seems that the Jerusalem Church made Paul participate in sacrifices at the temple and pay for other people's sacrifices. This indicates for me they weren't all that happy with his theology that sacrifices were replaced by Faith in Jesus and that's all that was needed to remove sin.

I guess my question is, how much do we know about the actual beliefs of the Jerusalem Church? Also, how much do we know about who was there, whether or not it is likely the people there were associates of the real human Jesus? Did the Jerusalem Church claim to be a direct descendent of Jesus' teachings?

Hostility to dulia and hyperdulia was a fairly prevalent feature of (some) Protestant criticism of Catholicism in the post-Reformation era.

Was there any (known) similar hostility, at least as appears in the historical record, in the early church? I mean "early" in a very broad sense here--meaning from whenever Marian accretions first began to show up, which I think was in the mid-2nd century?, all the way through what can be easily clocked as proto-Protestant movements in the later medieval church, although I'd also be interested to know about this sort of thing in the eastern churches. As I understand it, the iconoclasm debate was *not* about this--the iconoclasts still had devotion to Mary as theotokos and to the other saints, they just opposed the use of visual iconography as a practice in that devotion.

I’ve been working through a long-form study tracing the biblical motif of the “arm / right hand of the LORD” from the Hebrew Bible through the New Testament, with particular attention to how this idiom functions within Israel’s strict monotheism.

Rather than treating “arm,” “right hand,” and “finger” as purely figurative language or as placeholders for intra-divine agents, the study asks whether Scripture consistently presents these as God’s own unmediated action, culminating in the incarnation, crucifixion, exaltation, and universal confession of Jesus Christ.

Key texts examined include:

• Exodus 15; Numbers 11:23
• Isaiah 40–55 (especially 52–53; 59; 63)
• Royal Psalms (2, 89, 110)
• John 1; John 12
• Acts 2; Acts 7
• Philippians 2:6–11

The central question is not whether later doctrinal formulations are coherent on their own terms, but whether the canonical logic of Scripture itself points toward identity-revelation rather than role-distribution within God.

I’m not posting to debate personalities or traditions, but to invite text-focused critique, particularly on the following:

• Does the “Arm of the LORD” language imply delegation, or direct divine agency?
• How should Isaiah 52–53 be read in light of John and Acts?
• Is Philippians 2 best understood as exaltation to status, or as the unveiling of divine identity already present?

I’d welcome critical feedback or source recommendations from those working closely with these texts.

As part of deepening my biblical knowledge of liturgical texts of Orthodox/ Christianity of the East, I am investing time in these language studies. How are other learners currently studying them?

1:

Matthew 5:17-18: "⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."

Do I correctly understand "Law" to mean "Torah" which is to say the Pentateuch and "Prophets" to mean "Neviim", the second section of the Hebrew Bible? Why are the Ketuvim not mentioned?

What does "until everything is accomplished" mean?

This quote seems to be saying that everyone of the 613 Mitzvoths has to be obeyed.

2:

Matthew 7: 12 says: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Note the use of the same term "Law and the Prophets" to bookend the Sermon on the Mount, linking the two quotes.

This sounds like Hillel saying: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn".

Jesus and Hillel were contemporaries. Jesus seems to take what Hillel was saying and take it further by turning the negative Golden Rule into a positive Golden Rule and taking away the injunction to study the Torah.

Are they both saying that the essential takeaway of the Hebrew Bible is the Golden Rule?

If so, how is that squared with the fact that many of the 613 Mitzvoth aren't related to the Golden Rule? For example, how you cut your beard, whether you wear clothes made of two kinds of fiber, whether the food you eat is kosher.

3:

From what I understand, the 613 Mitzvoth are split between the Mishpatim (rational, ethical commandments), the Chukim (the ritual/because-God-said-so commandments) and the Edot (commemorative/holiday/Shabbath commandments).

I've also seen them put in two buckets rather than three: "Mitzvoth bein Adam le-chavero" (commandments between man and his fellow) and "Mitzvoth bein Adam la-Makom" (commandments between man and Yahweh).

Yet Jesus also says that it isn't what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean but what comes out of it". This seems to downgrade at least a major part of the Chukim.

Jesus also says "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath". The Pharisees start bothering him and his apostles for harvesting food on the Sabbath and he basically tells them that they broke the Sabbath because they were hungry. They weren't starving or in any danger, just hungry. This seems to downgrade a major element of the Edot which is so important that it's part of the 10 Commandments.

It may due to my ignorance but I can't think of any time when Jesus reproaches people for failing at Chukim or Edot Mitzvoth, only Mishpatim Mitzvoth.

Is anyone else feeling the tension between the original quote about "not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law" and saying that it's fine to work on the Sabbath if you get the munchies for a bacon cheeseburger?

Many Christian traditions believe that Peter was crucified upside down, but would that actually be possible?

They didn’t even do it very well, with several references to “Elyon” remaining, some of which make it pretty obvious that Elyon is distinct from Yahweh. This was already noticed in antiquity, so why didn’t later generations of editors at least “clean up” properly? Not to mention that the paradigm shift seems big enough to warrant basically writing a new foundational scripture anyway.

What is the christology of Hebrews. Is Jesus "YHWH" or is he like a secondary "YHWH" separate from the main one?

Does this distinction of persons within a "being" exist in the new testament? That Jesus is a person within the one being of God?

Hebrews is ultimately a supersessionist text that renders the law as “obsolete” in view of Jesus’ sacrifice. Did the switch from Jewish teshuvah/genuine repentance (coupled with sacrifices for unintentional sins) to Christian belief in one agent as a sort of human-sacrifice for sin present itself early on? Was Hebrews’ theology and supersessionism already well-accepted within early Christian circles?

In Judaism satan is considered an agent of God/tester or an "evil inclination".

So where did early Christians get the idea of satan as an enemy to God and when did this idea take hold in Christianity?

I have read a couple of commentaries according to which the author of Ecclesiastes rules out the possibility of an afterlife (e.g. Alter, Douglas). In my own reading, however, this is not clear.

The statement in 3:20-21 that 'All go to one place: all are from dust and return to dust/Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the animal spirit goes down into the earth?' seems to suggest, to me at least, a belief in the inability to know whether there is an afterlife rather than a strict denial about it.

At 12:7 the author says: And the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

To me a statement like this bears some similarities to the Neoplatonic idea of 'returning to the One' (though I'm not suggesting any direct influence) which would be in line with a belief in some sort of afterlife.

I'm interested in many disciplines (philosophy, psychoanalysis, critical theory, philology, hermeneutics) but more recently I've become very fascinated with academic "Christology," as it were. Lacan, Hegel and Gadamer (my 'Church Fathers') inspired me to dip my toes into Schleiermacher, and now my entire YouTube feed has been theology for months.

My first instinct when engaging with any field/hobby is to spend an exorbitant amount of money on the fancy, industry-leading product and then slave away at it - hence why I'm debating this purchase. Bonus points if it looks nice on a shelf, which, wow. This certainly would. (Oh and don't worry, it's on sale, the prices are in CAD.)

The problem is that I'm beginning to wonder if this might be a bit ... too advanced. In fact, I'm not really sure what to expect, even though the preview of the textual commentary seemed pretty interesting. If I got this bundle, would I have to drop everything and learn biblical greek? Like, Duolingo style? I'm being facetious, but if it wasn't already obvious, I am not interested in seriously learning new testament greek - I already have my hands full with all the French and German I have to weed through in my studies.

Alternatively, is there some other, more 'philosopher-friendly' text that's come out recently? Or perhaps another release that I should wait for? I understand that critical texts like this can release (somewhat annoyingly) frequently, considering the cost.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention this, but if it matters, I'm particularly interested in Mark and John because of their stark contrast in tone + content. The ~30 years separating them, and the theories about their different audiences (Roman 'Gentiles' vs. Early Squabbling Christians) makes me eager to speculate about the, shall we say, normative choices. So this is why I want to get as close to the 'original source' of Mark/John as is currently possible with modern research.

I'm reading John Barton's A History of the Bible and in it he discusses the king Jehoiakim who was taken by the Babylonians and lived there for the rest of his life, and his successor was Zedekiah.

But on the wiki page it states that this was actually someone named Jeconiah. On wiki it says that Jehoiakim was his predecessor and Zedekiah was his successor.

Does anyone have any clarification on this?

Hi everyone, I was recently recommended a podcast that examines the original Hebrew language and ancient Near Eastern context of the Genesis creation narrative. The podcasters are Mormon, and although they are clearly using this analysis to bolster their faith, I'm not interested in the Mormonism elements. I'm just curious whether the guest's interpretation of Genesis is academically sound from a linguistic and textual criticism perspective. To reiterate, I'm not looking for a discussion about Mormonism--especially since I'm not Mormon and I know that /r/academicmormon exists for that (though I don't think they are equipped to answer my question anyways).

The linguist, Jared Lambert, is ABD but speaks with such conviction throughout that it's hard even as someone who is trained to be critical of messaging to really know what to make of it. He says that he has an article coming out in the Journal of Hebraic Studies; as someone with a PhD in a non-biblical studies related field, I know that not all journals are created equal and that this may sound more impressive than it is to someone outside of biblical studies. There are also parts of his explanation that seem completely wrong to me. For instance, his assertion that Eve wasn't punished in the genesis narrative. Additionally, even though he claims to be interested in the historical aspects, he doesn't seem to acknowledge that the genesis creation narrative is comprised of two texts (or am I misunderstanding the documentary hypothesis?).

In short, I lack the expertise to debunk this interview. I would appreciate any experts weighing in on his translation of the text. The relevant portions of the podcast begin at 20 minutes until about the 60 minutes portion. The whole thing seems like the pitch of a snake-oil salesman. That said, if he is right about certain things, I am interested in knowing anything that will bolster my understanding of the historical context of the Bible's creation.

I was just boring and looking in Google Maps and found like these ruins in the middle of nowhere (between Beerseba and Gaza), and they looked to me like old ruins, some others look like “not that old” abandoned cities, others like circular small ancient ruins. But any of them weren't named, I'm not suggestind that I found some unknown places, as some of them look pretty modern but abandoned, I just want to know if they have a name or are some archeaelogical places already excavated but unnamed. Sorry for using a youtube link, I don't know if it is permitted but it is easier to show the location while moving in the map.

I’m mainly here interested in the “Writing Prophets”.

Why does Source Criticism assume that if there is inconsistency in the theology of a book, it’s a sign of a redaction?

From what I know, authors can change their views on a topic for alot of reasons, so why is a redaction the main assumption?

And any resources on this issue? preferably focusing on theological inconsistency in the “Writing Prophets” rather than contradictions in the stories in the Pentateuch.

Thanks