Ancient Canaan: part 4
How do we know what the Canaanites believed? How did their beliefs influence the Israelites? Tablets discovered in the ancient city of Ugarit help answer those questions.
Ancient Canaan: part 3
How do we know what the Canaanites believed? How did their beliefs influence the Israelites? Tablets discovered in the ancient city of Ugarit help answer those questions.
Ancient Canaan: part 2
How do we know what the Canaanites believed? How did their beliefs influence the Israelites? Tablets discovered in the ancient city of Ugarit help answer those questions.
Review of Stories from Ancient Canaan
How do we know what the Canaanites believed? How did their beliefs influence the Israelites? Tablets discovered in the ancient city of Ugarit help answer those questions.
Juvenal and the Lord’s Supper
In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes about the divisions between rich and poor, including meals they were supposed to be sharing. These are brought vividly to life by the Roman satirist Juvenal.
Three book challenge
Books for Life is a new initiative to help encourage Christians to read more books. People are being encouraged to talk about 3 books which have changed their lives and why. This is my contribution!
Inspiring Psalm 104
Psalm 104 has been described as “Genesis 1 set to music”. That’s clearly the main inspiration for the psalm, and one which most readers will quickly realise. But, it’s not the only source of inspiration. It’s less well known that the psalm is also inspired by the Egyptian Hymn to the Sun.
Review of Faith in the Face of Empire
What does the Good News look like for Palestinians? What does the Bible have to say about the severe problems that Palestine faces? Mitri Raheb is a Palestinian Christian and has written the book Faith in the Face of Empire to answer these questions.
Joseph and Sinuhe
How does Ancient Egyptian literature help us understand the bible? The Egyptian story The Tale of Sinuhe helps us understand better the narrative of Joseph in the book of Genesis.
Archaeology and the United Monarchy
What does radiocarbon dating have to do with understanding the world of the Bible? Quite a lot (if you use it properly…!). Does it have anything to say about King David? Quite possibly…
No other gods…
The Ancient Israel site of Kuntillet ‘Arjud shows that the commandment to “have no other gods” was regularly broken. I’m not quite sure why that should be either controversial or presented as a new discovery, but every so often it is!
Destruction levels
One of the (many!) misunderstandings between biblical scholars and archaeologists seems to be over destruction levels. On many sites that have been occupied for a significant amount of time there will probably be evidence, sooner or later, of at least one major destruction of the site. This is usually a layer of burning which may…
Go on a dig!
I was pleased to read John Byron’s recent blogpost on Why Biblical Scholars Should Participate in at Least One Dig. He talks about the experience giving him new ways to think about history and how we construct it, about the skills of observation and interpretation (as well as hard work!) required, and about how it…
olem - From the past to eternity 