In the beginning of the Bible, the tree of life represents what sets humans apart from divinity – but other texts use the symbol to depict mankind’s relationship with God.
An illustration of an antique photograph of the British Empire’s mission work among the Zulu people of then-Natal province.
ilbusca/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images
Despite the diverse images used for God in Scripture and Christian tradition, male language and images predominate in contemporary Christian worship.
Figuring out what to do with the ‘Song of Songs’ has preoccupied people reading the Bible for centuries.
'Song of Songs' illustrated by Florence Kingsford/Southern Methodist University/Wikimedia Commons
The famous biblical book alludes to God only once. Historically, though, most interpreters have argued the poem’s about love between the divine and his people.
Support for strong gun ownership rights is often associated with conservative Christian views, but religion and self-defense have a much longer history in the United States.
‘The Nativity,’ circa 1406-10, by Lorenzo Monaco.
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Simchat Torah is about more than beginning to read the Torah all over again. It’s about the need to reexamine what we think we know, over and over again.
A detail of the incipit page with the first words of the Gospel of John: In principio erat Verbum, “in the beginning was the Word”.
The British Library
A book that took ten years to make became the oldest surviving version of the Gospels in English.
‘Departure for Canaan,’ a detail of a 13th-century mosaic from the dome of Abraham in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice.
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A scholar of the ancient Near East explains how loan forgiveness was handled thousands of years ago in the Bible and royal decrees.
Activist Jason Hershey reads from a Bible as he protests in front of the U.S. Supreme Court with the anti-abortion group Bound for Life in 2005 in Washington, D.C.
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Faith can inform opinions about abortion on both sides of the political debate, but the Bible itself says nothing directly about the topic, a biblical scholar explains.
A 12th-century commentary on the Book of Job shows Satan transmitting a disease to him.
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Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity