Home » The Bible and Beyond
Enjoy posts about a variety of subjects, all designed to help you look at religion, the Bible, and early Christian texts in a new way.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2021-12-06T06:41:38-05:00December 8th, 2021|Tags: Christmas, Eugnostos the Blessed, Gospel of Luke, Gospel of Truth, Letter of Peter to Philip|
“Joy to the world!” “‘Tis the season to be jolly.” The Christian Advent wreath reminds us that joy welcomes the Messiah. But there’s a tension between uninhibited joy and the knowledge of pain in the world.
By Dr. Hal Taussig|2021-11-16T17:48:23-05:00November 24th, 2021|Tags: Concepts of God, Gospel of John, Gospel of Truth, Meaning of Life|
When I would look across the car, and see the fierce confidence of a dancer, I would find myself silently saying “I am in you and you are in me.”
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2021-11-10T12:53:21-05:00November 10th, 2021|Tags: Fear and Protection, Healing, Jesus, Letter of Peter to Philip, Violence|
The first time I read the relatively unknown text called the Letter of Peter to Philip from the Nag Hammadi collection, I was stunned with its overall message of guidance in the face of violence.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2021-12-06T06:46:02-05:00October 13th, 2021|Tags: Concepts of God, Demiurge, Marcion, Secret Revelation of John|
Using the myth of the demiurge, the author of the Secret Revelation of John shows why humans feel the kind of pain and sorrow that God never inflicted on them.
By Dr. Hal Taussig|2021-09-20T17:23:33-04:00September 21st, 2021|Tags: Bible, Christianity, New Testament, Revelation|
But based on the two predominant views, the Revelation to John has never made sense to many—often most—Bible readers, much less to non-Christians.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2021-09-08T00:40:30-04:00September 8th, 2021|Tags: Early Jesus Followers, Healing, Jesus, The Greek Magical Papyri|
The lessons he taught concerning the realm of God may well have touched the soul and caused the kind of awakening that actually healed the sick.
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2021-08-24T08:18:08-04:00August 25th, 2021|Tags: COVID-19, Fear and Protection, Gospel of Mary, Secret Revelation of John|
We might discover a greater healing power in our conversations when we consider the means of becoming part of the "immovable generation."
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2022-05-14T23:57:15-04:00August 11th, 2021|Tags: Christian Heresies, Gnosticism, Gospel of Mary|
"This is the kind of life that seems most consistent with Jesus’s other teachings, and the accusations against Gnosticism hardly apply to this text."
By Dr. Hal Taussig|2021-09-11T05:48:45-04:00July 28th, 2021|Tags: Book of Wisdom, Christian Canon, Early Christian Texts, Hebrew Bible, Wisdom of Solomon|
"My proposal is to own the larger reality of Bibles and scripture in which the poetry, stories, letters, and wisdom take their largest and most flexible expressions."
By Shirley Paulson, PhD|2021-07-14T00:27:04-04:00July 14th, 2021|Tags: Eternal Life, Heaven, Salvation, Secret Revelation of John, Theology|
Surprisingly, even this description of torture and eternal punishment offers no hint of punishment due to a flawed, sinful nature. . . . People suffer from their own choices, not from an almighty judge.
