Bible Interpretation

By: T. M. Lemos

The Book of Exodus presumably reflects the views of its Israelite authors on their deity, morality, and the like. Why then would the Israelites have imagined Yahweh slaughtering Egyptian children for sins the children themselves had not committed? Did the Israelites even think children were persons with any type of rights?

By: John Drummond

Eve, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel—the names of biblical matriarchs such as these have lived on long after they were first written down more than […]

By: Ben Witherington III

Over decades of studying the Bible, I’ve noted how much emphasis many scholars place on the adjectives used to describe the biblical God—God is righteous, […]

By: Megan Sauter

In the Book of Genesis, we are told about Cain’s birth, his violent act of fratricide and his subsequent exile. We learn that he married and had descendants, but the Bible is strangely mute about his death.

By: Shawna Dolansky

The serpent in the Garden of Eden is portrayed as just that: a serpent. The story in Genesis 2–3 contains no hint that he embodies the devil, Satan or any other evil power. So where does the devil come into the details of Eden? Biblical scholar Shawna Dolansky examines how the serpent became Satan.

By: James Tabor

James Tabor suggests that in the same way the basic apocalyptic texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls have as their historical reference points the parties and politics of the mid-1st century BCE, the Ur-text of revelation is most likely composed against the backdrop of local events in Judea in the 40s and 50s CE–and has little to do with Rome and its emperors.

By: John Gregory Drummond

Does our modern conception of Satan have any resemblance to the devil in the Bible? Just who is Satan?

By: Andrew McGowan

Andrew McGowan challenges the tradition that Jesus was a welcoming host at meals.

By: Shawna Dolansky

Are the 10 Commandments really a moral code, or did the ancients understand them rather as the constitutional basis of a political theocracy?

By: Megan Sauter

Early Christians celebrated the Lord’s Supper as a full meal, but by the third century, it had ceased to be a banquet and had become a ritualized small meal instead. Steven Shisley examines how the Lord’s Supper transitioned from a full meal to a ritual in BAR.