The Common Roots of Hanukkah and Christmas (Originally Posted December 2003)

Religious people frequently assert that they have received their truth by divine revelation. It is a strange assertion, leading almost inevitably to the power claim that there is a …

Charting a New Reformation, Part XXX – The Ninth Thesis, Ethics (continued)

We have thus far relativized the mythical claims made for the code by which the people of Israel claimed to live, by noting that even the Bible reveals confusion …

Charting A New Reformation, Part XVII – The Fifth Thesis

“The Miracles Stories of the Old Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an Incarnate Deity.”

I wonder how …

Charting a New Reformation, Part XII – The Third Thesis: Original Sin “Pre-Darwinian Mythology – Post-Darwinian Nonsense” (continued)

In the fourth century of this Common Era, when the creeds of the Christian Church were being formed, people reading the Christian Bible assumed that it was “the inerrant …

Charting the New Reformation, Part VI – Building the Case for the Death of Theism: The Impact of Freud

First there was the revolution in astrophysics led by Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. In that revolution, the comfortable assumption that God lived just above the sky, watching over us, …

Part XXXVIII Matthew – The First Confirmation Class

Most people are not aware that Judaism, at the time of Jesus, had become a missionary, conversion-oriented religion. People all over the Roman Empire were finding their way into …

Part XXXVII Matthew – The Impact of Deuteronomy on the Journey of Jesus to Jerusalem

When the Transfiguration experience was over, Matthew tells us that Jesus and his disciples came down from that mountain. It had been a transformative experience for the disciples, Matthew …

Part XXXII Matthew – Dedication and Transfiguration, Part I

Matthew, having provided Jesus stories for the Sabbaths between Sukkoth and the final major Jewish festival of the liturgical year, is now ready to relate Jesus to this last …

Part XXI Matthew – Yom Kippur and Sacrificial Blood

The primary Christian mantra incorporated into our hymns, prayers and sermons is some variation of the phrase: “Jesus died for my sins!” It comes out of a Christian definition …

Part XX Matthew – Introducing Yom Kippur and the Jewish Concept of Atonement

We return this week to our ongoing study of the gospel of Matthew after a six week hiatus in which we examined, first the use of the concept of …