Tag: Apostle
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Alien Jesus?
You’ve probably seen these guys (and girls) online. They are sometimes assembled into small congregations and even find some success in the weirder parts of the USA (Los Angeles.) They are driven by the belief in both Christianity AND Extra-Terrestrials and have merged them into one fascinating new belief system; Jesus was an alien.
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The Gospel Of Thomas…. Doubt-Free
In 1945 one of the greatest historical finds ever emerged in Nag Hammadi, Egypt. Dozens of early Christian texts suddenly came to the awareness of the western world. Called the Nag Hammadi Library, it was a collection of a 52 mainly gnostic texts along with Plato’s Republic and The Corpus Hermeticum. One theory is that…
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Papias of Hieropolis
Papias of Hieropolis is more than just an amazing name for your next child; he may be one of the most important players in early Christian history that you have (probably) never heard of. It is through him that what little we know about the author of the “main” gospel, Mark, comes to us today.…
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Thecla; the First First-Woman of the Church.
For as long as anyone can remember, Mary the mother of Jesus has held the position of the highest revered woman of the Church. By sheer volume, more prayers are said to her than any other person; including Jesus. In the early Church however, there was another woman who contended for that honor. Thecla. The…
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There’s Something About Mary, Mary and Mary….
The name “Mary” occurs quite often in the story of Jesus. Whether “Maria”, “Mariam” or “Mariamne”, the new testament is loaded with them. In fact, did you know that the gospel of John lists the women who were present at Jesus’ crucifixion and that all three of them were named MARY? That is exteremly odd…
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Part 1.5: The Man Behind (most of) the New Testament; Paul.
Before we go any further into the individual components of the New Testament, it may be helpful to learn a little bit about the man who is (either directly or indirectly) behind most of it: Paul. It is true that I tend to take a bit of a cynical tone towards his actual knowledge of…
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Part 1: Assembling the New Testament…
Growing up as an evangelical Christian. my sole resource for information on Jesus was the New Testament. From Sunday school and the pulpit came lectures from the epistles of Paul and the four gospels. It took several decades for me to learn that there is a wealth of other material concerning our favorite first century…
The Incredible Jesus 