The high-tech device that lets me see back in time a century or more

At least two or three times a month, I see back in time. Sometimes I’m even able to overhear entire conversations. I know it sounds hard to believe, but it’s true. I’ve been able to see New York City in 1911 as people and cars dart about… and Paris in the 1890s when horse-drawn carriages […]

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Prague: a holiday from the Covid insanity of the West

It’s a cold, sunny day in mid-January, and I’m sitting on a frosty barstool outside, sipping the hot mulled wine the Czechs call Svarák.  I can see the colorful Astronomical Clock about thirty feet away, built by Master Mikuláš Kadan in the early 1400s, with the Church of Our Lady of Týn looming above Old Town […]

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No, World War III is not a good idea

The same national security elites who pushed the United States into war in Iraq and Afghanistan are now trying to do the same with Russia and the Ukraine.  In the process, they are urging the sort of insane escalations – no fly zones, providing fighter jets to Ukraine — that, in August 1914, turned a minor act of terrorism in […]

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Coronavirus gives online education a big boost

Last year I took a year-long course in German through an online program at a community college. I travel to Germany on business quite a lot, and after five years of visits wanted a thorough understanding of German grammar and basic vocabulary. It was an astonishingly good course, difficult and thorough. My teacher prepared weekly videos that went over […]

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The 155th Anniversary of Lincoln’s Killing: The Cost of Political Hatred

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

One hundred and fifty-five years ago, the bloodiest conflict in America’s history was finally coming to an end. It was mid-April 1865. The Civil War was almost over, after more than 600,000 deaths. Just five days earlier, on April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General […]

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The Lincoln Assassination and Why It Still Matters

This April marks the 155th anniversary of the killing of President Abraham Lincoln by the actor John Wilkes Booth.  Around 10:20 p.m. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Booth snuck up behind Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC.   The actor fired a.44 caliber derringer into the back of Lincoln’s head, then jumped onto […]

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A Visit to the Berlin Wall and the Reality of Socialism

On a recent business trip to Berlin, I stopped by the Berlin Wall Memorial on the corner of Bernauerstrasse and Ackerstrasse.[1] It’s the longest stretch of the wall (1.4 kilometers) in its actual historical setting, a chilling reminder of what life was like in the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR). With an Orwellian flourish, the […]

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How Netflix boosted my life-long love affair with foreign languages

My children were exasperated.  About once a minute, I hit the pause button on the TV remote, just long enough so I could catch the French word scrolling across the bottom of the screen in the subtitles. I was watching Zone Blanche, a new French TV thriller on “Netflix.”  My family watches a lot of […]

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US judge voids conscience protection rule for health care providers

judge’s ruling on November 6 may pave the way for some American states to force doctors and nurses to commit various forms of medical killing against their will. In a sweeping 147-page ruling, US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York struck down a 2017 Trump Administration rule that would […]

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Obama Slams “Woke” Identity Culture He Helped to Create

At the Obama Foundation Summit meeting on October 29, 2019, in Chicago, former president Barack Obama again strongly criticized the “woke” identity culture that puts a premium on moral outrage over race without actually doing anything concrete. “I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, […]

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How pressure to impeach Trump is created by fake news polls

In leftist professor Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s classic analysis of the mass media, Manufacturing Consent, the main thesis is that “the ‘societal purpose’ of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.” The ways the media inculcate […]

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Dispute over Texas 7-year-old may prove a legal setback for transgender movement

The legal dispute between a formerly married Texas couple over whether their 7-year-old son should be given hormone-blocking treatments and “transition” to being a girl may turn out to be the straw that finally breaks the transgender movement’s back – at least in terms of public opinion. The case, widely reported in the United States, […]

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AOC, Bernie Sanders and other leftist extremists have hijacked Democratic Party

I know plenty of Democrats. Both of my parents were Democrats. Some of my siblings. Almost all of my cousins. Heeding President John F. Kennedy’s call to ask not what your country can do for you, but to ask what you can do for your country, they believe government should protect working families against the […]

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The Growing Controversy over Slavery Reparations

The hot-button issue of slavery reparations got a major boost April 13 when students at Georgetown University voted in favor of a special fee that would benefit the descendants of 272 African slaves once owned by the Catholic university, located in Washington, DC. The vote fanned the flames of an escalating political debate over whether […]

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Why Jesus was Not an Apocalyptic Prophet Who Thought the World Would End in His Lifetime

What Jesus meant by “the kingdom of God” has been a source of debate among scholars across the academic and religious spectrum. For the past century or so, many scholars and historians have claimed that Jesus of Nazareth never intended to launch a movement or found a community at all, that he was an “apocalyptic […]

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Are the Gospels Best Understood as Creative Nonfiction?

  I was listening to the mythicist blogger Richard Carrier on “Unbelievable,” the UK Christian radio show and podcast that brings together Christian and non-Christian thinkers to debate various issues related to faith. Carrier, who has a Ph.D. in ancient history and is a very bright fellow, is one of the few credible members of […]

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Searching for Jesus in the Land of Israel

It’s a warm, sunny day in northern Israel, and I am sitting on the railing of a fishing boat from Kibbutz Ginosar as we slowly make our way along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Behind us, on the burnt-brown hills that rise up sharply from the lake, we can see the resort town […]

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Is the Pauline admonition for women to be silent in churches (1 Cor 14:34-5) a later scribal addition?

An interesting article on textual variants in one of the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels, Vaticanus: Vaticanus Distigme-obelos Symbols Marking Added Text, Including 1 Corinthians 14.34–5 It covers the old issue of whether Paul’s infamous admonition that women should be “silent” in assemblies of Christians (1 Cor 14:34-35) is actually a later scribal addition.  The […]

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The Earliest Report of the Resurrection of Jesus Likely Dates Back to AD 35 or Earlier

Going on the radio to promote a book is a weird experience.  One problem is that writers tend to immerse themselves in their topics and so fail to appreciate that other people don’t know anything about their subject… and don’t really care. That’s even true when the subject is Christianity and Jesus of Nazareth. For […]

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The Dawn of Christianity: How God Used Simple Fishermen, Soldiers and Prostitutes to Transform the World (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2017)

dawn-of-christianity-final-coverKnown for his popular books on Christianity and biblical studies, author Robert J. Hutchinson brings the early church to vivid life in this masterful account of the last week of Jesus’ life on earth and the twenty years that followed. He pulls together diverse biblical and historical accounts, recent archeological discoveries, and the latest in secular and Christian research to flesh out the well-known story and provide a deeper and more accurate view of those eventful times. Timely, comprehensive, and surprising—it’s the place to start for an in-depth understanding of how the Christian faith came to be.

How did a small-town rabbi and his beleaguered group of followers generate a movement that literally changed the world? The Dawn of Christianity answers that question with an intriguing combination of compelling narrative and up-to-the-minute scholarship.

Focusing on the climactic events of Jesus’ ministry and the twenty exciting years that followed, Hutchinson weaves together the New Testament accounts into a seamless narrative and then supplements the story with the latest in archeological, linguistic, and historical research. In the process he corrects long-held misconceptions and assumptions, sheds new light on how and where biblical events may have happened, and deepens our understanding of the ways those decisive years still impact our lives today. Photos, timelines, and a surprisingly useful “cast of characters” add new dimensions, depth and color to bring the story to life.

A highly readable synthesis of scripture, scholarship, and journalistic flair—The Dawn of Christianity is a rich and timely retelling of the greatest story ever told and its compelling aftermath.

REVIEWS:

The Dawn of Christianity is a fascinating look at the early days of the Jesus movement that became the church (from Jesus through the early days of the church). Shunning a skeptical read of this material, Hutchison works his way through the events and disputes that circulate around the origins of the Christian movement. It is a worthwhile journey with a capable guide that richly repays the reader. — Darrell L. Bock, Ph.D., Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary

Buy online at Amazon.

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“Young Messiah” and the Self-Consciousness of Jesus

Some Catholic apologists are up in arms about the recent Hollywood film, “Young Messiah,” because, they say, it presents an “heretical” portrayal of the child Jesus as not being fully omniscient at age seven. I haven’t seen the film yet and so I don’t want to comment on the film itself. However, the question of […]

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6 Shocking New Discoveries About Jesus of Nazareth

The entrance to the Mary of Nazareth International Center in central Nazareth doesn’t look like much. It’s just a simple doorway off narrow Casa Nova Street, a few hundred yards from the Basilica of the Annunciation. Yet inside this recently built Catholic evangelism center lies an amazing discovery that has sent shockwaves through the world […]

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Just Who was Jesus of Nazareth, Anyway?

In the midst of the annual battles over how a pluralistic society should properly recognize an important Christian holiday celebrated by 70 percent of the population, there is one question rarely asked at this time of year: Just who was Jesus of Nazareth, anyway? Some claim that Jesus didn’t exist at all, and that Christianity […]

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Why Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Are Bad Choices for America

I’m one of those disaffected conservative voters who are delighted by Donald Trump’s politically incorrect jabs at the media — and by his plain speech. Like many old white males who own their own businesses, pay their taxes and just want to be left alone in peace, I’m mad as hell and don’t want to […]

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Are These Horrific Mass Killings Really Happening “Daily”?

When listening to politicians, you always have to remember Rahm “The Godfather” Emanuel’s adage:  never let a serious crisis go to waste. What Emanuel meant by that, of course, is that politicians should take advantage of a crisis situation to advance their political agendas. That is precisely what happened with the mass murder in San […]

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Peter Taught Marcus Who Taught Camillus Who Taught Quintus…

In the 1980 film The Competition, starring Richard Dreyfus and Amy Irving, there is a scene that has always been a metaphor, for me, for how Christians come to know Jesus Christ. Sounds strange, I know, but bear with me a moment. In the film, Richard Dreyfus plays a talented but not quite top pier […]

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Why I Secretly Root for the Atheists in Debates

Shortly after my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible came out, I was asked to fly to Ireland to participate in a debate on the existence of God at University College Cork. I had been doing radio interviews for my book and was very comfortable discussing some of the sillier arguments atheists use […]

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Today’s Golden Age of Philosophy

Few people know this, but our age is an amazing time for people who love philosophy. When I was in college 30 years ago, philosophy was strictly an academic exercise and there were few resources available for people, like me, who view philosophy more as a way of life or avocation than as a job. […]

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Crunching the Obamacare Numbers: A Lot More Money for A Lot Less Care

Ready or not, Obamacare is finally here. Polls show that most Americans remain highly skeptical of the law’s benefits. According to a new CNN/ORC International survey released October 1, less than one in five Americans say their families will be better off under the new health care law. Nevertheless, the controversial law’s passionate defenders insist […]

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The American People Say: You Fooled Us Once with Iraq…

You know what they say:  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The American people have learned the hard way that US politicians in both political parties tend to passively defer to what the “experts” in the defense and intelligence sectors advise doing, often to the detriment of the country […]

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French Politicians Alarmed by “French Spring” Movement

The “French Spring” movement (le Printemps Français) has rattled the French political establishment – and even gay marriage advocates in faraway California. That’s because it calls into question the claim that same sex marriage is “inevitable” and opposition to it mere bigotry. In recent months, between 400,000 and a million demonstrators of all ages have […]

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Atheists Take Credit for Science When They Had Nothing to Do with It

So if, as Albert Einstein insisted, Biblical religion was the necessary intellectual precondition for the gradual development of scientific method, how did the myth of the “scientific revolution” come about? One reason: For the past 400 years, the partisans of irreligion-from the Marquis de Sade to Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins-have deliberately misrepresented the way […]

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