What does Josephus say about Jesus?
Most scholars agree that Josephus wrote about Jesus Christ in his book, Jewish Antiquities (see Antiquities 18.3.3). However, because Christians preserved his writings they argue that Christian scribes...
View ArticleWho is Tacitus?
Cornelius Tacitus, born about A.D. 56, was from a relatively new senatorial family. His early political career was under the Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. He successfully survived...
View ArticleWhat does Tacitus say about Jesus and the early Christians?
Tacitus’ Annals is best known for its account of the great A.D. 64 fire in Rome. Nero, looking for scapegoats, capitalized on the growing unpopularity of the Christians and their own expectation of a...
View ArticleWhat does BC and AD have to do with Jesus?
The most popular calendar in use throughout the world today is known as the Gregorian or Western calendar established in 1582. It is based on the assumption that Jesus Christ was born on the year 1....
View ArticleWhy are Mormons Interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Like many Jews and other Christians, Latter-day Saints (Mormons) were excited when news spread of the discovery of ancient Jewish texts near the Dead Sea beginning in 1947. Eventually, eleven caves...
View ArticleWhy is Jesus Called the Son of David?
In the first verse of the first gospel as it appears in our New Testament, Matthew calls Jesus Christ “the son of David” as if it were a sort of preface to the genealogy he is about to write, and...
View ArticleThe Law of Sacrifice: Part I – Looking Forward
The atonement of Jesus Christ is the central doctrine of Christianity, and all other Christian doctrines come out of and are appendages to it.1 Not only can these other doctrines be connected back to...
View ArticleThe Law of Sacrifice: Part II – A Great and Last Sacrifice
The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ “embraces, sustains, supports, and gives life to all other gospel doctrines. It is the foundation upon which all truth rests and all things grow out of it and...
View ArticleThe Law of Sacrifice Part III – In Remembrance
The evening before the Lamb of God was to be crucified for the sins of the world and hours before He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus was sitting with his Apostles in a “large upper room” (Mark 14:15). It...
View ArticleWhy is Jesus Christ Called the Son of Man?
Why is Jesus Christ called the Son of Man? While others in the Scriptures (particularly the Old Testament) who are called “son[s] of man” (Jeremiah 49:18, Ezekiel 4:16, Psalms 8:4), the word “son” is...
View ArticleWhat was Bethlehem like in the first century?
Bethlehem (Hebrew for “house [or place] of bread”) was the birthplace of King David (1 Samuel 16:1-4). An unwalled village about five miles south of Jerusalem with little more than a hundred persons...
View ArticleWhat was Nazareth like in the first century?
Jesus of Nazareth, a phrase occurring seventeen times in the New Testament, has identified a small, unwalled town in southern Galilee with Jesus for all time. Located some fifteen miles west of the Sea...
View ArticleWas Jesus born on Christmas day?
All four gospels agree that Jesus Christ was born prior to the death of Herod the Great (died March 13, 4 B.C.) and died when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea (A.D. 26-36). The challenge facing any...
View ArticleWhat is a Targum?
A Targum (plural Targumim) is an Aramaic translation and/or paraphrase of the Hebrew Bible. They are known from the Medieval period, but with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the twentieth...
View ArticleWho is Josephus?
Joseph ben Matthias ha-Cohen, commonly known as Josephus, was a Jew, born in A.D. 37 to an aristocratic priestly family. His native language was Aramaic, although he would have known Hebrew well, and...
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