Almost all of us, at one time or another, have participated in a Christmas pageant. We have been angels or shepherds, wise men or Joseph, the Virgin Mary or …
Mark’s messenger of the resurrection, described in that gospel as “a young man in a white robe,” had promised a future appearance of the raised Christ to the …
Salome was a dancer, she danced before the king.
She wiggled and she wobbled and she …
We suggested last week that Mark, the author of the first gospel to be written, introduced his story of Jesus with a narrative appropriate to the Jewish New Year …
It should not be surprising that a Jewish scribe in the first century, which is what the author of the gospel we call Matthew was, would make constant references …
Matthew has thus far mined the Hebrew Scriptures for texts that will advance his thesis that Jesus has fulfilled the Jewish messianic expectations. In the opening genealogy, he has …
Using the gospel of Matthew as our guide we have begun the task of opening the background necessary to grasp, as members of the current generation of Christians, the …
The familiar stories of Jesus’ miraculous birth entered the Christian tradition in two different forms, separated by perhaps a decade. The original narrative was written by a man we …
Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and …
Deconstruction is always easier to do than reconstruction, but it is not nearly so important. It is never enough to say who or what Christ is not, but we …