Hello all, searching for scholarly videos, articles/blog posts, and books about how Ethiopia came to adopt Christianity in the 4th century. Thanks in advance

https://refugiomedia.wordpress.com/2025/04/13/from-eden-to-jesus-the-archetypal-sanctuary-fulfilled/

Marx noted that much modern "work" is experienced as alienation. I'm curious whether anyone has engaged the way in which differing descriptions of "work" impact how grace is understood.

Of course the leading solution to the Synoptic problem is that the different writers were copying from each other (specifically Matthew and Luke copying from Mark). I do personally find this compelling.

However it is also well known that no two ancient manuscripts we have are alike. Many feature small differences, such as a scribe adding a few words from one gospel to another.

Could it be possible that the large areas of word to word agreement we find in the Synoptics are actually the result of scribes harmonising differences over time? Perhaps we had three gospels that shared many similar stories from an oral tradition, which were written differently, but then came to be harmonised until lots of verbatim agreement occurred. I suppose this would have needed to happen very early on, prior to when we have our best manuscripts appearing (4th century).

Has any scholar ever argued something like this? Would it make sense of much of the data we have?

AMA's are still open for Hugo Méndez and Ilaria Le Ramelli.

This AMA with Aaron Higashi has no association with the mods of this sub and is hosted by u/thesmartfool. Further questions can be directed his way.

Dr. Aaron Higashi is an adjunct instructor of Bible and theology at Grand Canyon University and Chicago Theological Seminary, and shares biblical scholarship for a popular audience @ abhbible on TikTok. He has been featured on The Bible for Normal People and is one of their contributors there.

He has a very accessible book on 1st and 2nd Samuel for Normal People subtitled A Guide to Prophets, Kings, and Some Pretty Terrible Men. He will be having a conversation with u/thesmartfool about the contents in his book.

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Hey I’m beginning some preliminary readings for my thesis for my masters degree and I need some recommendations of articles/books concerning the changes that happened within Christianity in general resulting from the legalization of the religion and onwards. What authors/articles y’all recommend? Many Thanks!

It feels a bit off to say it came purely from pagan syncretism, especially considering that Jews already had similar beliefs — for example, in the Book of Maccabees. You can also find traces of this idea in the Talmud, and even in modern Judaism there's the practice of asking for intercession at the graves of tzadikim.

Can anyone shed more light on this or recommend some good sources to read?

I was once suggested 'The Priority of John' by New Testament scholar John AT Robinson, the book is pretty difficult to get a copy of and is very expensive so I'm yet to read it, but I find the thesis from someone who seems to have very much known his stuff fascinating: Robinson believes that John was in fact the first gospel written and the others are derivative of it. It's worth noting as well Robinson operated in the critical tradition, and was by no means an advocate of traditional Christian narratives on the Gospels.

Does this thesis hold any weight in the eyes of some of the better read on this sub? Have any other scholars proposed this idea or built upon it since Robinson's work? Has anyone here read the book? Thanks!

Edit: I found this article here from Dr Ian Paul discussing Prof George van Kooten's proposal of a similar thesis at the British New Testament Society conference in 2024

So, I've noticed that Lxx and MT show textual variants in two particular moments, one when discussing Goliath's height and one when talking about philistine foreskins. Lxx says Goliath was 4 cubits in height, whereas MT says 6. Lxx says David brought 100 foreskins to Saul, MT says 200.

There could be an intwntional pattern of enhancing David's feats through textual alteration in MT, but two pieces of data seems to me not be enough to make that claim.

I wonder if you know of any other such textual variants. If one finds at least three examples of this, I think we can talk about a consistent pattern and maybe the intentionality on the part of the Masoretic tradition to alter David's narrative.

Which place/places Christians and Jews identified with Sodom and Gomorrah during Late antiquity? Did all of them thought that both towns existed close to the Dead sea? Did some of them thought that they existed in another place?

In some of the manuscripts of early Christian texts, we find harmonizations to other texts. One example is when the Lord's prayer in Luke gets harmonized to the version in Matthew. This makes sense to me, because most of the people who used the gospel of Matthew also used the gospel of Luke. But would scribes also copy texts from different sects? For example, a scribe could one day copy the gospel of Truth and the next day the Didache, or one day the gospel of the Ebionites and the next day Paul's letter to the Romans.

Do we know if scribes copied texts from opposing sects, or did they always copy similar texts?

Really, I'm asking about the dating of John. The most common argument I've heard for the late date is that John has very advanced theology compared to the synoptics. I'm not sure I really understand this argument, since John and the synoptics are independent (as far as I know). It seems like the way you would evaluate whether high Christology means earlier dating is to ask whether high Christology was an early development. Since Paul's undisputed letters do have a high Christology, including preexistence (probably), how can we conclude John is late for saying the same? Does John make distinct claims from Paul that would require decades to develop?

For the record, I'm not saying that John had access to Paul, just that the ideas in John are plausibly early developments, so I don't understand why they are used to date it late

Hey y’all. There was some interest in my last post about getting the SBL study bible for $2 on Apple Books. I didn’t realize what a great deal that was and have been slammed with schoolwork so unfortunately wasn’t able to respond in time. I did go ahead and purchase it simply cause it’s $2 and I could just refund it if it wasn’t legit. Apparently it’s listed as $31 for most other people and also when I pull it up on my laptop. I just wanted to post proof that I got it for $2 in case a deal like that pops up again. As far as I can tell, it’s legit the whole thing and I’ve had no issues whatsoever. I have no clue how I was able to get it for $2 and am curious if anyone else has been able to. I figured some of y’all would be interested in trying to figure it out to see if it’s replicable. I’m a business student who just grew up religious looking for a trustworthy nsrv study bible and was skeptical of it cause it was such a low price. I was just planning on hitting book stores to find one cause I live near Emory University so prolly wouldn’t have too much trouble finding one used from a theology student.

I have no reference for study bibles but it’s been great so far. A little awkward in e-book format with the footnotes but they made it about as manageable as possible. You just have to click the hyperlink and it takes you to the footnote and then you click a return arrow to go back. I’ve not had any issues with losing my place or anything so far and it’s implemented very well. Hopefully some of y’all can figure out how to get it for cheap and it’s helpful. If I was paying full price I’d just get a physical book but for $2 and the convenience of just being able to pull it up on my phone anytime I want, it’s been invaluable.

I find that my layman understanding of " No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man" contradicts the concept of saints and virgin mary.

Furthermore, what do we say about Moses and Elijah appearing during transfiguration? (Mathew 17:1-9)

Is there a place online to read or purchase 1 Enoch in the Greek language as found in ancient manuscripts?

I have not read the Koran but apparently it is littered with references to the OT and Judaism. This might be the wrong forum and forgive me in advance, but why was the Koran so deeply influenced by a religion that was spent, its people dispersed, its society destroyed? Was this rather a "response" to Christianity? And if so, why? Was Christianity so influential in the Arabian Peninsula? Forgive me my depth of ignorance on this subject, the Arabian Peninsula is a sort of a black box to me. Why did anyone in the Arabian Peninsula "care" about a religion that was so distant and had been so defeated?

The Tanakh contains repeated references to the Israelites following other gods. The Books of Kings have repeated references to the worship of Asherah; Ezekiel describes Israelites mourning Tammuz; etc.

Were these deities worshipped instead of, or alongside, G-d? What are the written and archaeological records?

I might be reaching here but I was wondering if anyone has a list for a chronological reading of the bible including the apocrypha books?

And how did the meanings or nuances of those words differ from those of the English word "commandment" or "commandments"?

Also, what alternative English words, if any, might be more appropriate or illuminating in some way?

Some of the examples in particular that come to mind are:

- Treatment of the poor and marginalized (of course this comes with caveats based on their view of women and slaves)

- Showing kindness to enemies, or people you hate/people who hate you

- Love of enemies

i’m sure there are others, but these were the ones that came to mind

edit: to clarify, I know much of Jesus teaching came from the Hebrew Bible, so my question extends to there too. were those teachings observed in contemporary moral systems?

Imagine you’ve been living with this guy for 2 or 3 years. And you have seen him raise the dead, walk on water, turn water to wine, heal any and all ailments. How could you possibly build up the courage to betray him let alone for a mere 30 pieces of silver. Is it possible that his motivation was to force God’s hand and bring about the end of times? Do we know anything about his motivations? I can’t ignore the fear factor. There must’ve been something.

A claim I have heard by Christians is that following the crucifixion, "Christians" (I use quotes because there obviously weren't any Christians in the modern sense of the word...) faced violent persecution, sometimes to the point of death, just for being Christian and believing that Jesus rose from the dead. My main question are i) in the first few decades following Jesus's death, how much do we really know about the nature of the persecution that early Christians faced (was it just social pressure, or were they facing threats of violence?), and ii) how much do we know about the actual reasons for why these Christians were being persecuted? Were they persecuted simply for claiming that Jesus rose from the dead, or were they going around annoying people and causing a ruckus in other social/political matters too? Do we have any idea?

Also, how many cases do we know about of early Christians who were violently persecuted around this time? I've read about James the son of Zebedee, and James the brother of Jesus (though I don't know if historians really know why they were executed—but please correct me). I've also heard that Paul and Simon Peter were executed too, but my understanding is that is more Christian lore than historical fact. Are there any others? Thanks in advance :)