The earliest evidence of the name "Israel" appears in the so-called "Merneptah Stele" (Egypt, Thebes, 1219 BCE). According to this, Israel is not a country or a city but a people. The Biblical portrayal of Israel is far from uniform. The patriarchal narratives in the Book of Genesis unfold a long migration of a family. In the Book of Joshua,...
Miraculous healings no longer present any particular difficulty. Natural miracles, however, belong to a different category. If we believe that Christ truly possessed the power of God, then there is nothing surprising about His miracles bearing witness to creative power. If we do not believe that the power of God was manifested in Him, we are forced...
In terms of the historical authenticity of the New Testament, miracles present the primary difficulty. The credibility of these stories is a matter for historical proof.
Jesus listed the natural disasters and plagues that would devastate the earth as signs of His second coming. However, two extremes must be avoided. One is fanaticism: some are captivated by sensationalist, date-setting theories that are not found in the Bible. The other extreme is to disregard these plagues as natural phenomena unrelated to the...
The most important consequence of the discovery of agriculture is the crisis it causes in the value system of Paleolithic hunters: religious relationships with the animal world are replaced by the mystical community between humans and vegetation. Until then, bone and blood represented the essence and sacredness of life, but from now on, sperm and...
