By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2026-03-01T03:41:55-05:00December 23rd, 2025|Tags: Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Nativity Story, Religious Boundaries|
Ever wonder why Mary was chosen or how shepherds knew of Jesus’s birth? Early Christians filled in the missing details with imaginative stories that deepened faith in Jesus as God’s promised messiah. An interview with Dr. Tony Burke
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2026-03-09T02:26:33-04:00December 11th, 2025|Tags: Christian History by the Century, Concepts of God, Early Jesus Followers, Irenaeus, Marcion, Valentinus|
The second century CE was a time of upheaval and creativity. Jesus’s followers wrestled with questions of identity, authority, and faith. Amid trauma and transformation, the century gave birth to Christianity’s astonishing diversity and its enduring theological foundations.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-11-20T18:31:48-05:00December 3rd, 2025|Tags: Greco-Roman, Judaism, Violence|
Dr. Ward Sanford discusses the early years leading to Rome’s destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. Drawing from his historical novel’s first book, he mixes careful research with fictional characters to illuminate the forces that erupted between 63 and 66 CE. An interview with Dr. Ward Sanford.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2026-03-01T03:42:15-05:00November 25th, 2025|Tags: Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Matthew, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Jesus, Nativity Story|
Join the conversation with scholar Joan Taylor, exploring the world Jesus was born into. Discover how Roman violence, and migration to Nazareth shaped his earliest years and influenced the man he became. An interview with Dr. Joan Taylor
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2026-03-09T02:23:35-04:00November 12th, 2025|Tags: Chaos, Christian History by the Century, Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism, Violence|
Jesus was remembered as a towering moral and spiritual presence amid a century of turmoil. The memory of Jesus as victor—not as a defeated Jew—became the defining theme.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2026-03-01T03:42:01-05:00November 5th, 2025|Tags: Acts of Paul and Thecla, Apocrypha, Empowerment, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Thecla, Timothy|
Even if we may not like the text itself very much, it points us to questions we usually do not ask anymore. Maybe we should start thinking about these questions a little bit deeper. An interview with Dr. Tobias Nicklas
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-10-28T15:10:31-04:00October 28th, 2025|Tags: Christianity, Church, Early Christian Communities, Early Church|
Most of what we know about early Christianity comes from Eusebius—but recent scholarship shows his story is misleading. Join us to explore dynamic new perspectives that reveal a far more diverse and complex Christian past. An interview with Dr. Lillian Larsen
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-10-23T18:52:05-04:00October 24th, 2025|Tags: Christian Heresies, Christianity, Gnosticism, Religious Boundaries, Salvation|
One of the reasons I'm really interested in the diversity of early Christianity is because it helps us be more tolerant of the other when you start seeing how diverse it was originally. An interview with Dr. Bart Ehrman
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-10-23T16:29:10-04:00October 23rd, 2025|Tags: Christianity, Extracanonical Texts, Healing, Jesus, Theology|
“Borg seems to pause at this line of inquiry, remarking that explaining how Jesus’ healings occurred is ‘beyond our purpose and probably impossible.’ While this may be a responsible scholarly posture, I believe he was on the threshold of a theology that could have made healing a centerpiece of Christian understanding.”
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-12-11T17:25:25-05:00October 8th, 2025|Tags: Chaos, Christian History by the Century, Christmas, Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist, Violence|
The first century BCE reshaped Judea through Roman domination, Herod’s brutality, and the fragile hope and expectancy of David’s royal lineage. Into this turbulent landscape Jesus was born, carrying both the peril and promise of Bethlehem’s Davidic heritage.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-10-06T10:40:57-04:00October 1st, 2025|Tags: Christianity, Early Church, Jesus, Religious Boundaries, Theology|
This is not only an entertaining story, but deeply significant in terms of the development of Christian thought going on in the second century, when so many things were happening, and in such a robust period of time. An interview with the Reverend Benjamin Wyatt
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2025-09-24T08:45:33-04:00September 24th, 2025|Tags: Christianity, Gospel of Matthew, Gospels, Hebrew Bible|
Looking closely at particular prophecies and New Testament depictions of Jesus’s fulfillment of them shows that the reality is far more complex—and more interesting—than traditional Christian beliefs imply. An interview with Dr. Robert J. Miller
