Exploring the Bible

 Is the Crown of Thorns in Notre-Dame Real? On April 15, 2019, the world watched in horror as flames engulfed the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. As the spire collapsed and the lead melted, a different drama was playing out inside the burning building. A courageous priest, Father Jean-Marc Fournier, along with a human chain of firefighters, rushed into the inferno. They weren't trying to save gold or paintings. They were trying to save a simple circle of woven rushes, encased in a crystal tube. They were saving the Crown of Thorns. For roughly 1,600 years, believers have venerated this object as the actual instrument of torture pressed onto the head of Jesus Christ. But in an age of skepticism and science, is it possible that this relic is authentic? Or is it just a medieval fabrication? When we look at the history, the answer is surprisingly compelling. If you look at the relic today, it might surprise you. It doesn't look like the prickly wreath we see i...

 Understanding Preterism One of the most common attacks from skeptics against the Bible goes something like this: "Jesus promised he would come back 'soon.' He told his disciples that 'this generation' would not pass away before the end came. Well, it’s been 2,000 years. That generation is long dead. Jesus was wrong." Even some famous Christian thinkers, like C.S. Lewis, admitted that Matthew 24:34 (where Jesus predicts these things) was "the most embarrassing verse in the Bible." But what if Jesus wasn't wrong? What if the problem isn't with Jesus' timeline, but with our interpretation? This brings us to a theological view known as Preterism. The word comes from the Latin praeter , meaning "past." In short, Preterism is the view that many of the prophecies in the New Testament—specifically those about the "end of the age," the "Great Tribulation," and the "coming on the clouds"—were fulfi...

 Why Science Can't Clone the Shroud If I told you there was a photograph of Jesus Christ taken the moment He rose from the dead, you’d probably tell me I was crazy. Cameras didn't exist 2,000 years ago. But what if the "camera" wasn't a machine, but the burial cloth itself? The Shroud of Turin is the most studied artifact in human history. For centuries, skeptics have called it a medieval forgery—a clever painting or a scorch mark created by a crafty artist in the 1300s. But as modern science has advanced, a strange thing has happened. Instead of proving the Shroud is a fake, technology has revealed that we—with all our lasers, computers, and nuclear labs—cannot duplicate it. We can put a man on the moon, but we cannot create a copy of this ancient linen cloth. When you look at a painting, the paint sits on top of the canvas, or it soaks into the threads. The image on the Shroud does neither. It is incredibly superficial. It sits on the very top of the...

    Why Evolution Can't Explain Life's Code   We live in a world that often treats the Theory of Evolution not as a theory, but as a settled fact. We see the famous "March of Progress" illustration—the ape slowly standing up to become a man—in textbooks, museums, and pop culture. We are told that given enough time and random chance, pond scum eventually became poets, and molecules became mathematicians. But when we peel back the layers and look at the actual science—specifically the science of information and biology—the story changes. The more we learn about the complexity of life, the more the Darwinian explanation starts to fray at the edges. It turns out that believing in a Creator isn't "anti-science." In fact, it might be the only logical conclusion to the data we are finding. Imagine walking along a beach and finding the words "John loves Mary" written in the sand. You would never assume the waves rolled in and accidentally for...

 The Autopsy of the Passion If the Shroud of Turin were a crime scene, the evidence left behind would tell a story that matches only one specific execution in human history. For decades, forensic pathologists, hematologists, and chemists have treated the linen cloth not as a religious icon, but as a medical chart. What they have found is terrifyingly accurate. It doesn't look like medieval art; it looks like a trauma report. When we look at the Shroud through the lens of forensic medicine, we aren't just seeing a picture. We are reading the physical receipts of the price paid for our salvation. First, let’s talk about the blood itself. It is real human blood, not paint. Specifically, it is Type AB. This detail is striking for two reasons. First, Type AB is relatively rare in the general population (about 3-5%), but it is much more common among Jewish populations in the Middle East. Second, this blood type matches other potential relics of Christ, most notably the...

 The Rocks Don't Lie When you stand at the rim of the Grand Canyon and look down, the view is breathtaking. Mile after mile of colorful, stacked rock layers. The standard tour guide explanation is familiar: "These layers formed slowly, over millions of years. A little dust here, a little sand there, settling at the bottom of a calm ancient sea." But there is a problem with the "slow and steady" story. If you look closely at the evidence, the rocks don't speak of long, quiet ages. They scream of a sudden, violent, watery catastrophe. The Bible tells us in Genesis 7 that the "fountains of the great deep burst forth" and the "floodgates of the heavens were opened." It describes a global cataclysm that reshaped the planet. And when we put on our "Flood Glasses" and look at the geology, the world suddenly makes a lot more sense. Here is how the Great Flood explains what we see under our feet. Fossils are not easy to make. I...

  Why We Don't All Look (or Sound) the Same We live in a beautiful, colorful world. We see different skin tones, hear thousands of different languages, and experience hundreds of unique cultures. Secular history tells us that humans evolved separately in different pockets of the globe, slowly developing grunts into grammar over tens of thousands of years. It tells us that "races" are deeply divided biological categories. But the Bible tells a different story—one of a single family that was suddenly split apart. The story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is often treated like a fable explaining "why we talk funny." But when we look at archaeology, linguistics, and genetics, we find that Babel is the key to understanding human history. It explains not just our languages, but our differences and our fundamental unity. The Bible locates the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar (Mesopotamia/modern-day Iraq). It says the people used "brick instead of...

When History Catches Up with the Bible When you picture the grand scope of the Old Testament—the patriarchs wandering the desert, caravans crossing sands, and life in the Ancient Near East—what animal immediately pops into your head? Probably a camel. They are the iconic "ships of the desert." We see them in nativity sets, in movies about Moses, and in our imaginations when we read Genesis. They seem as essential to the landscape as sand itself. But for a long time, these magnificent creatures were the source of a pretty significant historical debate. In fact, for years, some skeptics pointed to the camels in the story of Abraham and labeled them an "anachronism"—something that appears in a time period where it doesn't belong (like spotting a wristwatch in a movie about ancient Rome). Today, I want to dive into this fascinating topic. It’s a wonderful example of how, if we just happen to wait a little while, archaeology and historical research have a h...

If you grew up watching Indiana Jones, you’ve probably spent at least a few minutes of your life wondering where the Ark of the Covenant actually is. It is, without a doubt, the most famous lost treasure in human history. For centuries, explorers, archaeologists, and theologians have scoured the globe looking for the golden chest that once held the Ten Commandments. But here is the million-dollar question: Has it been found? The short answer is: Not publicly. No major museum has it on display, and no news crew has filmed it. However, the long answer is much more exciting. There is a very strong possibility that the Ark isn’t "lost" at all—it’s just well-hidden, waiting for the exact right moment in God's timeline to reappear. Let’s look at the most compelling theories that align with history and Scripture. The Disappearance The last time we know for sure the Ark was in the Temple was during the reign of King Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:3), around 620 B.C. B...

Did Archaeology Find Jericho?   If you grew up in Sunday School, there is a good chance you can hear the song in your head right now: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down!” It’s one of the most dramatic scenes in the Bible. The Israelites cross the Jordan, circle the city for seven days, blow the trumpets, and shout. The massive fortifications of the city collapse flat, allowing God’s people to charge straight in. But for a long time, Jericho was the favorite target of skeptics. In the 1950s, a famous excavation led by Kathleen Kenyon concluded that while Jericho was an ancient city, it was abandoned and had no walls during the time of Joshua (around 1400 B.C.). For decades, this was taught in universities as "proof" that the Bible was historically inaccurate—a nice story, but not history. But as we discussed in our last post, archaeology is a discipline that is constantly updating itself. And when a new pair of eyes looked at t...