Author: David Lawrence Preston
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Yeshua bar Yehosef was barely mentioned by the chroniclers of his time
Did Yeshua bar Yehosef, the man later renamed ‘Jesus’ by his Greek and Roman followers, actually exist? At one time I doubted it. I placed him in the same category as King Arthur, Hercules and Robin Hood, mythical characters only loosely based on real people. But now I’m sure he did, even though the historical…
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All reported speech in the New Testament is only an interpretation of what was actually said
Not many people realise that the entire New Testament was originally written in Greek – a language that Yeshua and his disciples barely knew (if at all). Their everyday tongue was Galilean Aramaic. They may have understood a smattering of Greek since Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee and just a stone’s throw from Nazareth, was…
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A miracle is an event that cannot be explained
A miracle is any event in the physical world that cannot be explained by the known laws of science and nature. Consequently ‘miracles’ change as scientific knowledge advances. In times gone by mobile phones, microwaves, aeroplanes, television and the internet would have been considered miracles. Even flicking a switch to light up a room would…
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Why doesn’t the Church own up?
Earlier generations were unwilling to challenge the Bible from a scientific or historical point of view, but now we are willing, and, moreover, we can. Biblical scholarship has reached a new high in recent decades. New and better evidence has become available for historians, theologians, archaeologists and linguists to scrutinize for factual accuracy and new…
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The clergy know, but the faithful don’t want to hear it!
I’ve had many conversations with churchmen and women and discovered that many of them continue to teach the same old things about the Bible without really believing it themselves. They dare not say, though, so for fear of confusing their congregations and losing their employment. One Anglican vicar told me that, like all trainee clergy,…
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Chinese Whispers
Nowadays if you wanted to write a biography of someone who died half a century ago, like Dr Martin Luther King, Sir Winston Churchill or President Kennedy for instance, you would search the internet, visit a library and bookstore and look for film clips and old newsreels. You could even try to make contact with…
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Until the early 19th Century few in the West questioned the Bible’s accuracy
Until the early 19th Century few people in the Christian world questioned the Bible’s accuracy. It was considered sacrosanct. Only when the biblical texts began to be studied seriously in the early 1800s and cross referenced with other sources did a better understanding begin to emerge. As result, most Christians at that time had a…
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The Hebrew Scriptures – inaccuracies and contradictions
The Hebrew Scriptures – the Old Testament – is full of contradictions. If they were indeed dictated by G_d, as some Christians believe, it’s a G-d who frequently contradicts itself! We don’t have to look beyond the opening pages to find the first significant example. In the very first chapter of Genesis, G_d creates the…
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Christian Baptism
Did you know there is no mention of infant baptism (Christening) anywhere in the Bible? Yet the early church took it upon themselves to interpret their prophet Yeshua’s message as they saw fit. The purpose of the christening service is, of course, to deliver another generation of youngsters into church membership as parents promise to…
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Christianity rules – OK?
If you live in a European country, or one which used to governed by a European colonial power, the chances are that the Christian religion impacts on all areas of your life whether you are a believer or not. In the country of my birth, England, Christianity is actively followed by a tiny fraction of…