Exploring the Bible

If you have ever read through the New Testament book of Jude, you likely tripped over a very strange, single-sentence story in verse 9. It describes a cosmic dispute where the Archangel Michael and the devil argue over the physical body of Moses. If you are like most readers, your immediate reaction was probably to flip back to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy to see what you missed. But when you check the original account of Moses' death, that angelic wrestling match is nowhere to be found. Deuteronomy simply says Moses died on Mount Nebo, God buried him in a valley in Moab, and no one knows where his grave is today. So, where did Jude get this story? The answer lies in a fascinating, highly obscure historical artifact known as the Assumption of Moses (often used interchangeably with the Testament of Moses ). It is one of the great lost-and-found puzzles of biblical archaeology. When you examine the authenticity claims of historical artifacts like this one, you don...

  If you read ancient texts with a careful eye, you eventually notice the ghosts. When you read through the historical books of the Old Testament—Kings, Chronicles, Joshua, Numbers—you are actually reading a curated narrative built upon a massive, invisible foundation of older documents. Periodically, the authors drop a citation for a source that simply doesn’t exist on any modern bookshelf. They point to state diaries, prophetic dossiers, and epic war poetry as the objective evidence backing up their historical claims. Biblical scholars have identified roughly 20 to 25 distinct books, royal archives, and prophetic records explicitly named in the Old Testament that are completely lost to history. We don’t have fragments of them. We don’t have copies in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We only know they existed because the biblical writers expected their original audiences to be able to go to the library and look them up. If you enjoy objectively examining historical claims, this present...

  For decades, the historical timeline of human communication has been set in stone, literally and figuratively. If you open almost any standard history textbook, you will find a clear, widely accepted narrative: the invention of writing occurred in Sumer, in southern Mesopotamia, around 3400 BC. This early script, known as cuneiform, began as simple pictograms used by merchants and temple officials to keep track of grain, livestock, and trade. For a long time, the academic consensus has been that before this period, human societies were simply too primitive, too scattered, and too disorganized to require a complex system of written records. However, the sands of archaeological discovery are constantly shifting, and what we consider "settled history" is frequently upended by a single turn of the spade. A small stone plaque discovered at the megalithic site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey is currently doing just that. Dating back roughly 11,000 years, this artifact is...

  Have you ever stood on a rugged, untouched piece of land and wondered what exactly lies beneath your feet? We’re not just talking about the standard layers of topsoil and bedrock, but the kind of deep, hidden secrets that have the potential to rewrite history. For decades, explorers, scientists, and history enthusiasts alike have debated the origins of a massive, highly anomalous "boat-shape" formation buried deep underground. Is it merely a bizarre, albeit spectacular, geological trick played by nature? Or could it actually be the decaying remnants of something monumental, built by ancient human hands? For a long time, the debate has been trapped in a cycle of speculation, fueled by surface observations and blurry radar scans. The dividing line between passionate believers and skeptical geologists has remained rigid. But we are finally entering a new era. The days of simply guessing what lies beneath are over. A new, highly ambitious project is currently underway, and ...

  It is one of the oldest and most frequently deployed arguments in the skeptic’s playbook: The Bible contradicts itself on page one. If you sit down and read the first two chapters of Genesis with a modern, western, chronological mindset, it is easy to see why someone would make that claim. The order of events seems to scramble the moment you cross the chapter break. In Genesis 1 , the timeline is a majestic, orderly progression. God creates the earth, then the plants (Day 3), then the animals (Days 5 and 6), and finally, as the crowning achievement, God creates mankind—both male and female simultaneously (Day 6). But then you turn to Genesis 2 , and the timeline appears to completely rewind and rearrange itself. First, God creates a man out of the dust. Then, He plants a garden. Then, He creates the animals and brings them to the man. Finally, after all of that, He creates a woman. So which is it? Did the plants and animals come before the humans, or after? Did the origin...