Exploring the Bible

  When we turn the pages of a history textbook, we often encounter a period known as the "Ice Age"—a time when woolly mammoths roamed the tundra, and massive glaciers carved out the valleys of Europe and North America. For many believers, this era feels like a puzzle piece that doesn't quite fit. The Bible speaks of a Flood, the Tower of Babel, and the Patriarchs, but it never explicitly says, "And then the ice came." Because of this, some assume the Ice Age is a secular invention incompatible with Scripture. However, when we look at the geological mechanisms required to create an Ice Age, we find that it not only fits into the biblical timeline, but it is actually a necessary consequence of the Flood. Most creation researchers today posit that the Ice Age was a singular, catastrophic event that occurred in the centuries between Noah and Abraham. The Recipe for an Ice Age To understand why, we have to look at the climate mechanics. A global Ice Age is ac...

 When modern readers pick up a Bible, they are holding a single, bound object. It has a front cover, a back cover, and a spine. It feels like one book. However, for the first several centuries of Judeo-Christian history, the concept of the Bible as a solitary physical object was virtually impossible. The word "Bible" itself comes from the Greek ta biblia , which translates to "the books." Originally, the Scriptures were not a book, but a library—a collection of separate scrolls stored in jars or cabinets. To read Genesis, you pulled out the Genesis scroll. To read Isaiah, you needed a different scroll entirely. So, when did these separate documents merge into the singular volume we recognize today? The answer lies at the intersection of technological innovation and theological maturity, specifically occurring in the 4th Century AD. The Problem with Scrolls For centuries, the standard medium for written documents was the scroll. While scrolls were majestic, t...

When we imagine the early years of the Christian movement, we often picture the dusty roads of Galilee or the stone jails of Rome. We think of fishermen and tentmakers. However, within decades of the events of the New Testament, the faith had established a stronghold in the intellectual capital of the ancient world: Alexandria, Egypt. It was here, amidst the Great Library and the Lighthouse, that the first major institution of Christian higher learning was born. Known as the Catechetical School of Alexandria , this institution proved that the new faith was not merely a movement of the heart, but a rigorous discipline of the mind. While the school would eventually produce some of the greatest scholars in history, its origins are traced back to the arrival of a single man in the 1st Century AD: Mark the Evangelist. The Evangelist in Africa Saint Mark is best known to history as the author of the second Gospel—a fast-paced, action-oriented account of the life of Jesus. However, ch...