What Winger Presently Gets Wrong: “Women Keep Silent” (1 Cor 14:34–35)

Response to Mike Winger's Women in Ministry Part 11 on 'women keep silent' in 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

What Winger Presently Gets Wrong: Women Apostles

Response to Mike Winger's Women in Ministry Part 5 on whether women were apostles in the New Testament

What Winger Presently Gets Wrong: Women Leaders in the New Testament (PART B)

Response to Mike Winger's Women in Ministry Part 4 on women leaders in the New Testament (Part B)

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona — Kindle highlights from 'The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus'. 110 highlights.

The Giving Part 2: Judas the Betrayer, a Balanced View of the Sovereignty of God

[Music] the giving is a balanced view of the sovereignty of God God's sovereignty is vitally important for us to know God yet it's God's sovereignty taught as a system of theological thought which can lead to a person reading into the biblical text an outside concept that is foreign to the writers i...

Reinventing Jesus: How Contemporary Skeptics Miss the Real Jesus and Mislead Popular Culture

J. Ed Komoszewski — Kindle highlights from '>-'. 18 highlights.

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels

Kenneth E. Bailey — Kindle highlights from 'Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels'. 19 highlights.

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels

Craig S. Keener — Kindle highlights from 'The Historical Jesus of the Gospels'. 3 highlights.

Did Jesus guard the communion table?

In our discussion of Jesus, Judas, and the first communion, a Calvinist pointed me to an article by a Calvinist author. The article was said to refute the idea that Judas was commanded to partake of the first Lord’s Supper.

Did Judas receive communion?

My post on Judas Was Judas Predestined to be Lost? has been challenged. This post is an answer to that challenge.

Does Matthew conflict with Luke about Judas?

In my post about Judas and the last supper, Colin Maxwell, a Calvinist responded to my post, although not responding on this blog, but on his twitter account @weeCalvin.

Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ

Robert Bowman, J. Ed Komoszewski, and Darrell L. Bock — Kindle highlights from 'Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ'. 100 highlights.

@RayAwesomer @BertinMbokish @SocietyOfStChad @BishopJaxi That’s not necessary since the letters from the apostles and gospels were written in the first century. Just because a group made an official determination as to what the mainstream already kne...

@RayAwesomer @BertinMbokish @SocietyOfStChad @BishopJaxi That’s not necessary since the letters from the apostles and gospels were written in the first century. Just because a group made an official d

@elemayohoh @HolyHomebody Where is any evidence of the gospels in Hebrew? Even t

@elemayohoh @HolyHomebody Where is any evidence of the gospels in Hebrew? Even the letter to the Hebrews was in Greek!

@elemayohoh @HolyHomebody Further, there’s no evidence the gospels were written

@elemayohoh @HolyHomebody Further, there’s no evidence the gospels were written in Hebrew. The earliest manuscripts are in Greek, and the NT shows deliberate use of Greek grammar, vocabulary, and rhet

@biblingoapp The Greek Synoptic Gospels course sounds good.

@biblingoapp The Greek Synoptic Gospels course sounds good.

@Methodios007 I showed you problematic things from other gospels showing how clearly they are not scripture. The earliest church in the time of the apostles who were also alive at the time that the events occurred knew which were the true apostolic w...

@Methodios007 I showed you problematic things from other gospels showing how clearly they are not scripture. The earliest church in the time of the apostles who were also alive at the time that the ev

@peace_got @ScottCross_8 @pastherandie @5pur5y @CharmyRosewolf @JoanBandy @MikeWingerii James also appears to ignore 1T 1. Why does he start at chapter 2? He also fails to see how his view of Paul’s teaching would be substantiated in the Old Testamen...

@peace_got @ScottCross_8 @pastherandie @5pur5y @CharmyRosewolf @JoanBandy @MikeWingerii James also appears to ignore 1T 1. Why does he start at chapter 2? He also fails to see how his view of Paul’s t

@ronhenzel If only ChatGPT believed in the inspiration of all scripture includin

@ronhenzel If only ChatGPT believed in the inspiration of all scripture including the gospel accounts, it would agree with me that Judas participated. Ron, do you believe that the gospels are inspire

@masonmennenga If Jesus intended what it appears you think He meant by His statement, can you show me in His ministry recorded in the gospels: 1. When did Jesus free someone from their physical poverty? 2. When did Jesus free prisoners? 3. When di...

@masonmennenga If Jesus intended what it appears you think He meant by His statement, can you show me in His ministry recorded in the gospels: 1. When did Jesus free someone from their physical pover

1 Timothy 2:11-15

Sections: cross_references, debate_points, exegesis, greek_analysis

Revelation 2:14

Sections: exegesis, greek_analysis

Revelation 2:20

Sections: cross_references, debate_points, exegesis

John 20:15-17

Sections: debate_points, exegesis, greek_analysis

Titus 2:3-5

Sections: debate_points, exegesis, greek_analysis

1 Timothy 5:14

Sections: exegesis, greek_analysis

1 Corinthians 11:10-16

Sections: cross_references, debate_points, exegesis, greek_analysis

1 Timothy 3:1-4

Sections: greek_analysis

Philippians 2:5-11

Sections: cross_references, debate_points, exegesis, greek_analysis

John 17:5

Sections: cross_references, debate_points, exegesis, greek_analysis

διδάσκω (didasko)

to teach

σῴζω (sozo)

to save

οἰκοδεσποτεῖν (oikodespotein)

to rule the household, to be master of the house

ἐξουσία (exousia)

authority, right, power

πρεσβύτερος (presbuteros)

elder, older man; church overseer/leader by seniority

Counterargument: 'well-known among the apostles' proves too much given their obscurity

Mike offers a significant rebuttal to the highest-sense reading.

Richard Bauckham's rebuttal in Gospel Women

Mike introduces the main scholarly pushback against Burer-Wallace.

Analogy to overturned German scholarship on the Gospels and Greek myths

Mike argues that entire schools of scholarly thought can be wrong and get overturned.

Proof text #2: Matthew 28:6 and the empty tomb

Evidence that the tomb was genuinely empty

Christian cults always remove salvation by grace — Mike attributes this pattern to demonic influence, citing the book of Galatians.

Viewer question from 'Douglas Dobbins': 'Have you ever noticed that Christian cults always throw out salvation by grace?'

Barker's internal contradictions objection is a red herring — the five historical facts don't depend on biblical inerrancy

Mike's critique of Barker's third objection

Barker's legendary growth argument cherry-picks data — each Gospel sometimes has more miraculous content, sometimes less

Mike's critique of Barker's fourth objection

Mike answers 'no' when asked whether any factual claim in the Gospels probably didn't occur

Q&A — Cam Spears's question about Gospel historicity

Matthew 16:28 — 'some will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom' fulfilled at the Transfiguration

Mike addresses the final major verse used to support an imminent second-coming expectation.

Matthew 16 / Mark 9 / Luke 9 — 'Some standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom' refers to the Transfiguration, not the Second Coming.

Ra claims Jesus predicted his imminent return and was proven a false prophet because all disciples are now dead.

The Life of Apollonius is an enormous text (~15 hours of reading). Its sheer length makes cherry-picking parallels easy — you could find parallels to Paul, Pythagoras, George Bush, or anyone. The vast majority of the book describes Apollonius traveling beyond the Roman world to India, meeting kings and Brahmins, with content wildly unlike the Gospels.

Unlike the Gospels, which are classified as ancient biography (bios), the Life of Apollonius is likely a novel or hagiographic fiction. It includes fire-breathing dragons on every hill in India, fish-cows, hobgoblins, and other fantastical content not treated as miraculous but as straightforward description of faraway places.

The Gospels are recognized in New Testament scholarship as ancient biography (bios), a genre focused on carefully portraying a real person's life and character. The Life of Apollonius does not meet this standard — it is more likely a literary novel meant to inspire devotion, as evidenced by its fantastical content, internal contradictions, and the explicit political agenda behind its commissioning.

Winger argues Ehrman's book creates a false impression of radical biblical change by using technically true statements in a misleading way. When pressed in an interview, Ehrman himself admitted the Gospels 'pretty much say exactly what they say in your Bible now,' undermining the impression his book creates.

Earlier 20th-century scholarship (especially the Jesus Seminar) treated the Gospels as myths, but current scholarly consensus has shifted. Graham Stanton (King's College London) and David Aune (Notre Dame) both argue the Gospels fit the genre of Greco-Roman biography (bios), which aimed to faithfully record historical fact even with theological purpose.