Luther Seminary's Bible Q & A

Podcast discussion with Eric Barreto, Kathryn Schifferdecker and Mary Hinkle Shore. Article written by Mary Hinkle Shore. The New Testament includes four gospels. When two of them introduce Jesus, he is already an adult. The Gospels of Mark and John include no information about the birth of Jesus or read more...

Podcast discussion with Eric Barreto, Kathryn Schifferdecker and Diane Jacobson. Article written by Diane Jacobson. Does Sabbath still matter? Many folks would say no. Keeping the Sabbath seems kind of lightweight compared to killing, idolatry, adultery, and theft. Many think that keeping the Sabbath read more...

Podcast discussion with Eric Barreto, Kathryn Schifferdecker and Lois Malcolm.Article written by Eric D. Barreto. Jesus' first words in the Gospel of Mark do not appear until the 15th verse of the first chapter, and what he says is a definitive statement of what his mission is all about. At the same read more...

  Podcast discussion with Eric Barreto, Kathryn Schifferdecker and Richard Nysse.Article written by Richard Nysse. God's association with war in the Old Testament has long been a disturbing problem for Christians. [1] The problem becomes even more intense when we observe that God is called a "warrior." read more...

Podcast discussion with Eric Barreto, Kathryn Schifferdecker and Lois Malcolm.Article written by Lois Malcolm. Who is the Holy Spirit? We often have difficulty answering this question and perhaps are rightly suspicious of those who are only too eager with a response. Yet the Spirit is as close to us read more...

Podcast discussion with Eric Barreto, Kathryn Schifferdecker and Sarah Henrich. Article (below) written by Sarah Henrich. What really happened at Easter? Even after two millennia, inquiring minds still want to know: What really happened at Easter? Or, to phrase it differently: Really, what happened read more...

The New Testament consistently teaches that Jesus, God’s Son, dies so that we may be saved from sin. The ultimate motive for this is the love of God. Underneath the surface of events, behind and beyond the folly and wickedness of human leaders, God's plan for salvation was being worked out (Acts read more...

Paul hated women, didn’t he? Short answer: I don’t know. We aren’t really equipped to read that far into the head of someone who died 2000 years ago. We could reframe the question: Did Paul write things that have been used by Christians to do great damage to women and that have hampered read more...

Who wrote the Bible? The short answer is: God, through people. I’ll get back to that point. The long answer would take more time than you probably want to spend right now. So here’s a summary: The Bible was written by lots of different people over many centuries, from about the 9th or 10th read more...

When did Jesus drive out the money changers from the temple? In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus cleanses the temple near the end of his life. In John, Jesus does so in the earliest days of his ministry. What were Jesus’ last words? According to Mark and Matthew, Jesus cries out in pain and isolation: read more...

How do you know which Bible to buy? Has your church joined the Bible blitz? Are you involved in a Bible reading program? While this craze is to be applauded, such programs immediately encounter an embarrassment of riches: Never before have there been so many different translations from which to choose. read more...

What is the Gospel of Thomas about?The Gospel of Thomas isn’t really “about” anything. Well, it isn’t and it is. That’s because the Gospel of Thomas doesn’t tell a story. It’s a collection -- a list -- of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus, many just a sentence or read more...

Well, it depends on whose Bible you are talking about. If you are a mainline Protestant, that is, not Roman Catholic, your Bible is made up of two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is organized into four parts: the Pentateuch, the Historical Books, the Writings, and the read more...

4First, a Little Exercise 5Think of a favorite Bible verse (for example, my theme verse is Psalm 94:8: Understand, O dullest of the people). 6Add the numbers together (example: 94+8=102). 7Multiply them by two, for the two testaments in the Bible (102x2 =204). 8Substract 66 for the number of books in read more...

Multiple Choices I’ll give you four choices: The Bible is… A. A supernatural book that fell from heaven and is different from every other book. B. A seriously weird rule book for the stark and somber among us. C. A divine reference book with the answers to all of life’s problems. read more...

Are there questions about the Bible that you’re afraid to ask? Well, maybe you aren’t afraid, but you have a friend, or a friend of a friend, who has some questions he’d rather not share publicly just yet. This is the place for you, because here we’re interested in questions read more...