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In The Bible and Beyond blog, you’ll read explorations of historical and spiritual questions about Jesus, women, salvation, healing, the meaning of life, and where Christianity came from. This blog, curated by Shirley Paulson and Hal Taussig, opens the conversation that will help us – writers and readers – unlock some of the mysteries from extra-canonical books, forgotten scriptures, so-called “gnostic” gospels, and the Bible.
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Are There More than 66 Books in the Bible?
"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."
Do Only Christians Go to Heaven?
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.
How Many Baby Jesuses are There?
"The names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are almost the only things that are the same in the respective infancy narratives."
Will Reading Nag Hammadi Texts Weaken My Faith?
What is especially liberating about this for me is that I know these [Nag Hammadi] texts don’t belong to any other competing faith tradition either. All Christians ‘own’ them on an equal footing.
Contradictions in the Bible Explained
"The Bible does not offer us rules that determine reality, rather it offers some combination of a wild stream and an improvising jazz band which make life bigger."
How Do We Really Stay Safe?
‘Safety’—as it was understood among the early Jesus followers—was neither escape from sin and punishment, nor technological advances… It was a better understanding of our relationship to the divine power.
Living Church Practices, Not Static Creeds
"Practice is somewhat flexible [and] allows those who practice to make adjustments and grow."
How Can Jesus Promise Eternal Life?
"This ancient text sheds light on the link between the stark limitations of mortality and the possibilities of eternal life."
Look Beyond the Biblical Canon
"I hope that this blogpost signals to you the open-ended ways life comes toward us in the same way an open-ended Canon could help us be more alive. "
How Do Jesus and Sophia Reveal God’s Gender?
"One of the most intense controversies emerged when some of us pointed out that in the biblical books of Matthew and Luke, Jesus himself talked about Sophia in intimate and positive ways."
Can the Gospel of Truth Be a Unifier?
"If the Gospel of Truth is making a correct diagnosis of the cycles of truth and error, its therapeutic remedy is worth pondering."
The Gospel of Peter: Resurrection Reinvented
"A number of scholars suggest that the Gospel of Peter’s story may have been one of the earliest if not the earliest. It is time to take this possibility seriously."
Finding the Purpose of Life in 2021
"Discovering the source of their hope, the disciples/apostles learn that their treasure is actually the discovery of their purpose in life."
Don’t the Gospels All Tell the Same Story?
"The Gospel of John is more like a like a tender poem about God. No, that’s not quite right. It’s a tender poem in God. Like being in an ocean of God."
Gender Politics Revealed in Early Christian Art
Back to the gospels before Constantine, we have three men and three women. And the women are all the same size as Jesus... It’s really quite striking.
Seven Stunning Gifts from the Gospel of Mary
"If I’m right that it is a really good, short book from 1800 years ago, then you may want to just mull over what some parts of it mean to you."
What 1 Timothy Says about Women
"[The text] prohibited women from teaching only in that time because it was important that they first learn and only then begin to teach."
Surprising Remedy for American Decline in Religion: Ancient Religious Texts
How strong and vibrant Christianity will be during these next two decades depends primarily on how much creativity and vitality it can produce.
A Lesson from Jesus on How to Heal in the Gospels of Thomas and Matthew
If I’m reading this right, it sounds like the power to heal in the Gospel of Thomas … belongs to those who love unselfishly and unpretentiously.
Wisdom: The Intentional Consciousness of Present Good in the World Today
I recommend this kind of presence [Wisdom] in our lives. It asserts good sense, broad learning, and spiritual intuition.
According to the Gospel of Mary Our Conflicts Can Yield to Wholeness
We fight wholeness, even as we struggle to gain it. This paradox brings to mind the conflict in the Gospel of Mary.
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