Stephen J. Patterson discusses what Jesus meant when he referred to “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:11–12). Read more…
Biblical Topics
Biblical topics encompass issues in the study of the Bible and Biblical archaeology, scholars and archaeologists who study the Bible, and issues in the interpretation of the Bible and Biblical archaeology findings.
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Eunuchs in the Bible
• 10/04/2018
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Jesus as Lord of the Dance
• 10/02/2018
The apocryphal Acts of John describe the dance of Jesus and the apostles. How widespread was the ritual of dance in Christian worship? Read more…
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The Sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas
• 09/30/2018
New Testament scholar Simon Gathercole examines what the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas reveal about the early Christian world in which they were written. Read more…
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The Gospel of Thomas’s 114 Sayings of Jesus
• 09/30/2018
Read the 114 sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas as translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson. Read more…
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Understanding Israel’s 10 Commandments
• 09/28/2018
Are the 10 Commandments really a moral code, or did the ancients understand them rather as the constitutional basis of a political theocracy? Read more…
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First Person: Misogyny in the Bible
• 09/27/2018
According to scholar Christopher Rollston, there are many examples of the marginalization of women in the Bible. Read more…
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Christian Apocrypha: The “Lost Gospels”?
• 09/23/2018
The Christian apocrypha—noncanonical gospels—didn’t make the cut. But were they truly rejected, suppressed and destroyed? Until recent times there was no doubt. But now this “truth” may be unraveling. Many Read more…
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Jonah and the Whale
• 09/18/2018
The Book of Jonah is read in the synagogue on the afternoon of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the sacred Day of Atonement. Why, of all Read more…
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What Were the Crusades and How Did They Impact Jerusalem?
• 09/17/2018
Some of the most famous churches in Jerusalem were built during the Christian Crusades by Crusaders wishing to memorialize sites they believed to have great Christian significance. Read more…
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James or Jacob in the Bible?
• 09/15/2018
How did the Jewish name Ya’akov, properly translated as Jacob, become James in English versions of the Bible? Read more…
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Mary, Simeon or Anna: Who First Recognized Jesus as Messiah?
• 09/13/2018
Who was the first person to truly recognize Jesus as the messiah and understand the implications? Biblical scholar Ben Witherington III takes a close look at the account given in Read more…
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The Binding or Sacrifice of Isaac
• 09/07/2018
The story of the offering of Isaac is one of the most powerful narratives in the Hebrew Bible. But each tradition has understood and used the story differently and for Read more…
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The Canonical Gospels
• 09/06/2018
BAS editors have hand-selected articles from the BAS Library that cast each of the canonical Gospels in a new light. Read more…
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Gospel of John Commentary: Who Wrote the Gospel of John and How Historical Is It?
• 09/01/2018
The Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, tell the story of the life of Jesus. Yet only one—the Gospel of John—claims to be an eyewitness account, the Read more…
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What Does the Bible Say About Infertility?
• 08/30/2018
Joel S. Baden and Candida R. Moss analyze the Biblical portrayal of infertility in the Biblical Views column “Reevaluating Biblical Infertility.” Read more…
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The Story of Ruth
• 07/31/2018
According to Adele Berlin, the Book of Ruth illuminates the main theme of the Hebrew Bible: the continuity of God’s people in their land. Read more…
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The Song of Songs: Love Is Strong as Death
• 07/30/2018
The Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) from the Hebrew Bible is a love song beyond compare—although it has been compared to everything. Some have deemed it lewd entertainment. Read more…
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How Was the Bible Written During and After the Exile?
• 07/27/2018
How was the Bible written during and after the Babylonian Exile? Did the Biblical authors continue to use the Hebrew language even though they were living in lands where Hebrew Read more…
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Hidden Christian Cross at Hippos-Sussita
• 07/24/2018
A brass weight that had concealed a Christian cross was discovered in a Byzantine church at Hippos-Sussita in Israel. Read more…
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Alternative Facts: Domitian’s Persecution of Christians
• 07/20/2018
“Alternative facts” and “fake news” are not just a contemporary phenomenon. On occasion ancient writers similarly tried to spin their version of the truth. One such claim was that Roman Read more…
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High Places, Altars and the Bamah
• 07/15/2018
The open-air altar shrine, called a bamah (plural bamot), is known through several books of the Biblical canon. Often referred to as “high places” in translations of the Bible, bamot Read more…
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The Doorways of Solomon’s Temple
• 06/26/2018
In the Bible, the inner shrine of Solomon’s Temple is described as having five mezuzot. What are they? The question has puzzled Biblical scholars for centuries. Does a recently discovered Read more…
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The Animals Went in Two by Two, According to Babylonian Ark Tablet
• 06/18/2018
A recently translated Old Babylonian flood tablet describes how to build a circular ark.
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Bible Animals: From Hyenas to Hippos
• 06/14/2018
Lions and crocodiles and monkeys, oh my! There are about a hundred different types of animal species mentioned in the Bible. In this post, Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin discusses the Read more…
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Defining Biblical Hermeneutics
• 06/10/2018
The hermeneutics of the Bible are the many ways people read the Bible. Read more…
