Dr Paul Allen

Two sites are competing for the title of the real Bethsaida. Only one can be right, one would think, and el-Araj does have a layer from the time of Jesus and the apostles – but there’s a twist to this Galilean tale. Sometime between from the first century B.C.E. to the early first century, a fishing village arose where the Jordan River enters the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The name Bethsaida literally stems from that description: “house of hunting,” i.e., fishing. In the year 30 or 31 C.E., tetrarch Herod Philip upgraded the village to a polis named Julias, according to the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. Then, in the third century, the historical record goes silent on Bethsaida-Julias until the fifth century. Archaeology shows that is when the Byzantines built a church in the town over the putative home of the apostles Andrew and Peter. And then the city’s location was lost. “Bethsaida is the last missing city of the gospels,” Steven Notley of Nyack College told Haaretz dur...

Butler’s mosaic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In the New Testament a. Systems of slavery in  NT times Jewish slavery, to judge by the Talmud, remained governed as always by the tight national unity of the people. There was a sharp distinction between Jewish and Gentile slaves. The former were subject to the sabbath-year manumission , and the onus fell upon Jewish communities everywhere to ransom their nationals held in slavery to Gentiles . Thus no fundamental division into bond and free was recognized. At the same time the whole people might be thought of as the servants of Yahweh. By contrast, Greek slavery was justified in classical theory by the assumption of a natural order of slaves. Since only the citizen class were, strictly speaking, human, slaves were merely chattels. While this idea was carried into practice only in the rare cases where common sense and humanity broke down, the fact remains that throughout classical antiquity the institution of slavery was simply tak...

Image via Wikipedia "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ , called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God." ( Romans 1:1 ) Paul identified himself as a "servant (literally, 'bondslave') of Jesus Christ" as he began several of his epistles; and it is significant that he began the epistle to the Romans in the same fashion. The parallel phrase "bondslave of the emperor" was commonly used in governmental and commercial circles of the day, and the readers in Rome would fully understand the meaning of the new term. The emperor of Rome not only was to be obeyed as a human slave owner and king, he also was to be worshiped as a god. Paul boldly proclaimed himself to be the bondslave of a different slave owner, the subject of a different King and the worshiper of a different God. Paul knew and expected to convince his readers that this new doctrine he was preaching would quickly replace the imperialism of Rome, and he fully realized that...

Christ in Gethsemane (Christus in Gethsemane), oil painting by Heinrich Ferdinand Hofmann (Heinrich Hofmann). The original is at the Riverside Church (Riverside Church, New York City). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Jesus’ food was to do the will of His Father (John 4:34). He had come down from heaven, not to accomplish some sort of independent, personal agenda, but to carry out the will of the One who had sent Him (John 6:38). And that total, loving, delightful allegiance to His Father doesn’t stay in the realm of the theoretical. Jesus’ obedient submission to His Father’s will doesn’t keep Him on Easy Street. He had received a commandment from His Father to lay His life down (John 10:18), and He was intent on continuing His obedience. To the Point of Death Philippians 2:8 says that Jesus “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.” Surely, as the eternal Son of the Father, Christ had always, from eternity, obeyed His Father and experienced the joy and the fellowshi...

Deposition of Christ, 1507, drawing from Roman sarcophagi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Crucifixion in the ancient world was intended to take as long as possible. No vital organs were damaged, so it took two or three days to die, often from shock or asphyxiation, as muscles used for breathing grew weak. Luke 23:39–43 is a conversation between Jesus and the criminals crucified alongside him, and it is in the Bible because crucifixion was slow. There was time to talk. This conversation is surely one of the most extraordinary in the Bible. It shows us the similarities of these three dying men, and yet, at the same time, how very different Jesus is. The First Criminal The first criminal speaks to Jesus with bitter sarcasm: “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” His words betray a terrible misunderstanding. When he tells Jesus, “Save yourself and us!” he’s talking about salvation from the physical agony of crucifixion. But he doesn’t understand that it’s precisely by stayi...

English: Statue of Asclepius, exhibited in the Museum of Epidaurus Theatre. Deutsch: Statue des Asklepios, ausgestellt im Museum des antiken Theaters von Epidauros. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Jesus healed a man who couldn't get into a pool belonging to a Roman god Asclepius. The lower pool would flush from the upper pool and people were fooled by the rumor that an angel brought healing. Jesus healed the man to simply show, his belief was in a false ido and Jesus was God.  The history of the pool began in the 8th century BC , when a dam was built across the short Beth Zeta valley , turning it into a reservoir for rain water ;a sluice-gate in the dam allowed the height to be controlled, and a rock-cut channel brought a steady stream of water from the reservoir into the city The reservoir became known as the Upper Pool (בריכה העליונה). Around 200 BC , during the period in which Simon II was the Jewish High Priest , the channel was enclosed, and a second pool was ad...

Christ before Pontius Pilate, Mihály Munkácsy, 1881 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Matthew 27:27 –31 “And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him” (v. 31). Reformed theologians often describe Christ ’s work in terms of His active and passive obedience . The active obedience of Christ is His doing the Father’s will, taking specific actions — teaching, miracle-working, obeying the Law — to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). The passive obedience of Christ encapsulates His submission to death. We cannot absolutely separate Christ’s active and passive obedience, for Jesus must actively set His mind on the Father’s plan if He is to endure the cross. Still, passive obedience is an appropriate description of Jesus’ nonviolent resistance to suffering ( 1 Peter 2:23). This passive obedience includes Jesus’ arrest, trial, and scourging (Matt. 26:47–27:31). Jesus is scourged with...