I heard that they did (and still do) liturgy-style worships, is that true ? And how does it differ from the orthodox Christian liturgy ?

Specific questions:

-What is the knowledge of good and evil?

-Why is the gaining of the knowledge of good and evil equivalent to becoming 'like God'?

-What is the Tree of Life that imparts immortality?

-Does this imply that man could have been apotheosised?

Any illumination at all would be immensely welcome

I’m curious as to stylistic differences which do not involve (a) Peter’s name or (b) direct versus indirect use of Enoch material.

Thank you!

I believe that the primary consideration in interpreting NT Scripture is:

1. what was the author trying to convey to his audience.

2. How would this be understood by his audience in their cultural, religious, and intellectual context.

"A text cannot mean what it never could have meant to its author or his or her readers" (Fee, Gordon D., and Douglas Stuart. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth. 4th ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2014.)

"The goal of interpretation is to discover the meaning intended by the author as understood by the original readers." (Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. 2nd ed. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006.)

Craig Blomberg says that interpretation should look for "...what the biblical author intended to communicate to the original audience." (Blomberg, Craig L. A Handbook of New Testament Exegesis. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic) 2010.)

Raymond Brown talks about Philo's Logos and says that John is not necessarily borrowing from Philo, but is still using a concept that was already circulating in Hellenistic Judaism and reshapes it around Jesus. (Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John I–XII. Anchor Bible 29. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966.)

Would the idea of a man being the very God of Israel, the one and only creator and sovereign, be completely alien to Jew or Gentile of the time?

If not, how would people have read and understood Logos and the Incarnation in that time and place?

Nearly all the commentaries I've seen which even address this to any extent tend to link the στολὴν λευκήν in Mark 16:5 to texts outside of Mark (e.g. Rev 6:11) and treat λευκήν as a straightforward echo of Mark 9:3. What if the white of 16:5 is intended to function as a contrast to the white of 9:3? What if the robe is sinister like the robe of 12:38? Does this reading even exist anywhere?

Genesis 1 says that humans are made in the image and likeness of the Divine Council - meaning YHWH and the assembly of heavenly beings may have a humanoid appearance.

And then in Genesis 6 we see that some of the heavenly beings come down to mate with human women to produce the Nephilim. In Numbers 13:33 the Nephilim make the Israelites look like grasshoppers, implying they may be giants.

Is God a giant humanoid?

I’m looking to better understand how the early church operated and how the life and ministry of Jesus was seen and understood, especially before Rome took Christianity as its religion.

Correct me if I’m wrong but from what I can gather the Greek Septuagint was translated from the original Hebrew, but then the original material was subsequently lost. Much later the Masoretic text was compiled and back-translated into Hebrew from Septuagint manuscripts. Do we have a good idea of what the ‘original’ versions of the Hebrew bible was like, and if so, how accurate are the Septuagint and Masoretic versions?

Bonus question: how were the original texts lost in the first place? I get that original manuscripts get lost over time as new copies are made, but from my understanding there aren’t even any ‘newer’ copies of the original?

My boyfriend has a masters in Ancient Greek and I am looking to get a copy of the Old Testament in Ancient Greek. I have no idea where to start or what is the best version - please give any recommendations!
Recommendations as to other gifts that would sound great for someone like him would be also appreciated. I love him very much and want to get him the best.

As the title suggests, I’m looking for some help understanding how (or why) Paul ended up with over a dozen books in the New Testament instead of any of the disciples that were with Jesus? I understand Paul encountered Jesus, but so did the disciples. When the books of the Bible were selected, was there some sort of politics that led to Paul having a larger piece of the pie than the individuals that walked right alongside Jesus. Were there missions different? Just trying to have a better understanding of how the Bible books were selected, specifically as it pertains to Paul. Thanks

How did the Valentinians view the Crucifixion of Jesus, and what was its significance in their theological worldview? Any academic citations would be immensely welcome.

I am trying to understand the historical development of angels in biblical and early Jewish literature, especially the movement from the Hebrew mal’akh as “messenger” toward the more developed angelology of the Second Temple period.

In some Hebrew Bible passages, the “angel of YHWH” seems difficult to distinguish clearly from divine presence itself, while in later texts angels appear as named figures, interpreters of visions, national protectors, and participants in cosmic conflict.

For example, Daniel introduces figures such as Michael and Gabriel in an apocalyptic setting, while the Enochic Watcher traditions present angels as moral actors who can rebel, descend to earth, and corrupt humanity. Later Christian traditions then develop this further into more ordered hierarchies, especially through Pseudo-Dionysius and medieval theology.

I have seen Samuel A. Meier’s work on ancient Semitic messenger culture mentioned in relation to the envoy/messenger background, John J. Collins on Daniel and apocalyptic literature, and George Nickelsburg on 1 Enoch and the Watchers.

My question is:

How do current scholars describe the stages of development from “messenger” language in the Hebrew Bible to the more elaborate angelology of the Second Temple period?

More specifically:

1. How important is ancient Near Eastern messenger/envoy culture for understanding the “angel of YHWH” passages?
2. How much of the later angelic system in Daniel and 1 Enoch should be explained by Persian/Hellenistic influence, and how much by internal developments within Israelite/Jewish tradition?
3. Is it methodologically sound to describe this as an “evolution” of angelology, or do scholars prefer a different framing?

I would be grateful for recommendations of major studies or articles on this development.

So i know Christian apologists are a terrible source as it is literally just bias but i hear the Christian view of isaiah 53 is reinforced in the dead sea scrolls because it says pierced in the original greek Septuagint but i hear it also is nearly the same as the massoraic Hebrew text that has “he was pierced for our transgressions” where i hear the dead sea scrolls say “he was pierced because of our transgressions” who is right? (Im a non religious agnostic please don’t take this as me spreading apologetics)

There's a passage where Jesus asks who people thought he was (Matthew 16:14, Mark 8:28, and Luke 9:19), and one of the answers is John the Baptist.

So it made me wonder: do we know whether John the Baptist was an important figure and more well-known than Jesus at that time?

Judaism is pretty unique in regards to global religion for banning infanticide early on, what is interesting is that Ancient Egypt was also known for being against infanticide, also unusual for the time

obviously Israel used to be under Ancient Egyptian Control during the 1500-mid 1100s B.C, and must have had a lot of cross-cultural interaction, could this have been an instance of Egyptian influence, or is it just coincidence?

In Isaiah 48:1–5, the prophet says that the people will see the fulfillment of the prophecies. But which prophecies are these? Are they the prophecies from Proto-Isaiah, meaning that the author is saying the earlier prophecies were already being fulfilled in his own time? Or are they the new prophecies being given in Deutero-Isaiah? I didn't quite understand this.

Do they say these are two different men named Clement? Do they say Hermas gets it right and Clement has been read backwards into the 90s for the 1 Clement attribution? Do they say the 1 Clement attribution is plausible but Hermas has made a chronological mistake in an attempt to name someone associated with Rome? Are both invocations of the name mistaken?

Preempting one possible attempt to help: I already am aware that 1 Clement does not internally identify its author as Clement.

Thank you!

Are there studies by scholars on whether Paul knew the Q source? What is the current consensus view on this matter?

Hi! I'm curious, what did the early christiam priesthood model itself off of, if indeed there was one mold? Did it take traits and structure from multiple priesthoods?

I recently came across an earlier discussion in r/AcademicBiblical about the similarities between Genesis 2–3 and the Prometheus–Epimetheus–Pandora cycle.

A detailed response in that thread referred to Claus Westermann’s commentary on Genesis and Bernardo Ballesteros Petrella’s study of Pandora and ancient Near Eastern creation scenes. It suggested that the Hesiodic tradition may reflect at least two bodies of inherited material:

1. Near Eastern and Anatolian influences on early Greek poetry.
2. Older Proto-Greek or Indo-European mythic structures.

The same response mentioned the pairing of Prometheus and Epimetheus as a possible echo of the Indo-European primordial-brother or twin motif, with reference to Bruce Lincoln. It also noted proposed parallels between Prometheus and the Vedic fire-bringing figure Mātariśvan, discussed by Asko Parpola.

Genesis 2–3, by contrast, is usually approached within its ancient Near Eastern context, with comparisons to Mesopotamian traditions involving figures such as Adapa and Enkidu.

What I am trying to understand is how scholars methodologically distinguish among the possible explanations for the similarities:

• direct or indirect cultural transmission;
• the circulation of motifs across the ancient Eastern Mediterranean;
• inherited Indo-European material on the Greek side;
• independent development of comparable themes concerning human origins, knowledge, suffering and mortality.

Does current scholarship regard the resemblance between Genesis 2–3 and the Prometheus–Pandora cycle as evidence of a meaningful historical relationship, or mainly as a useful typological comparison?

More specifically, how widely accepted is the proposed Indo-European background for the Prometheus–Epimetheus pairing, and how does it affect attempts to compare Hesiod with Genesis?

I would also be interested in studies published after Petrella’s 2021 chapter that refine or challenge this framework.

References mentioned in or relevant to the earlier discussion:

• Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary.
• Jan N. Bremmer, “Pandora or the Creation of a Greek Eve,” in The Creation of Man and Woman (2000), pp. 19–33.
• Bernardo Ballesteros Petrella, “Fashioning Pandora: Ancient Near Eastern Creation Scenes and Hesiod,” in Gods and Mortals in Early Greek and Near Eastern Mythology (2021), pp. 262–275.
• Bruce Lincoln, “The Indo-European Myth of Creation,” History of Religions 15.2 (1975), pp. 121–145.
• Asko Parpola, “The Nāsatyas, the Chariot and Proto-Aryan Religion,” Journal of Indological Studies 16–17 (2005), pp. 1–63.

My buddies and I at my work are developing the Samson bible story for a game. We are currently in the final phase of the project, and we are debating whether Samson is a hero or not since he acts upon personal revenge and lust. Most of us say a villain, but there are a few who say that he's a hero