Into that fraught landscape came the news earlier this week that Karen L. King, a Harvard Divinity School church historian and expert on the controversial biblical figure, Mary Magdalene, had been given access to a papyrus fragment held by a private collector.

Biblical scholarship is an academic discipline, taught and studied at universities, colleges and divinity schools all around the world. So it should be no surprise that biblical scholars run in all shapes, sizes, colors and denominations. What would surprise many people, though, is that a very large number of us love Jesus and the church, and we spend hours upon hours communicating the love and wonder we experience with the Bible.

When I want to get under the surface of things, I re-read the “proverbios” of the early 20th c. Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, and those of the later 20th c. Argentine poet, Antonio Porchia. Both men lived simply, loved deeply, and are cherished still as poets in their respective homelands.

“I didn’t say I created all that there is, and I didn’t say I was anything. That is what you say about me,” the voice said. “I am mystery and I am absence. There is no power to create in mystery and absence. There is power only in understanding the boundaries between knowledge and mystery, between presence and absence.”

The Nicene Creed was both a religious and a political tool, a humanly constructed statement of belief that gave order and meaning to the world of its time. The question this book raises is whether it still gives order and meaning to our world–or rather, what kind of order and meaning does it give to our world.

This lively picture book for children ages 3 6 is filled with amiable animals who, through their actions, demonstrate age-appropriate mitzvot, including welcoming new friends, forgiving mistakes, respecting elders and sharing food with the hungry.

On this summer Sunday, Mark Andrew Alward shares about his fundamentalist Christian background, which included countless church services and immersing himself in the Christian sub-culture. He shares how, near the end of Bible College, he eventually questioned and then rejected many of the tenets of fundamentalist Christianity. He concludes my sharing a new vision of what Christianity could be today and the beliefs he holds dear.

New Testament scholars continue to probe into its origins and significance, but–with the exceptions of John Anthony McGuckin’s 1986 patristic study and the late Arthur Michael Ramsey’s 1949 theological-liturgical treatment–there have been few books on its place in the long tradition of Christian spirituality or interpretation, Eastern or Western.

First Light: Jesus and the Kingdom of God is a 12-episode DVD study of the historical Jesus and the Kingdom of God with John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, two of the world’s leading Jesus scholars, on location throughout the Galilee and Jerusalem, now available in a Home Edition for personal home viewing.

Join preeminent New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan on location in Turkey as they trace the Apostle Paul’s footsteps throughout the Roman Empire in Eclipsing Empire Home Edition. This 12-episode DVD program explores fresh insights into Paul’s message of the Kingdom of God, its challenge to Roman imperial theology, and the apostle’s radical relevance for today.

Saving Jesus Redux Home Edition is a 12-episode video exploration of a credible Jesus for the 21st Century. Join 25 experts for a conversation around the relevance of Jesus for today. Already utilized by hundreds of progressive Christian communities, Saving Jesus is now available in a Home Edition licensed for private home viewing. Two DVD discs with twelve 30-minute episodes.

Living the Questions 2.0 Home Edition brings together over thirty highly acclaimed scholars, theologians and other experts in a video exploration of an open, inclusive, broad-minded Christianity. Already utilized by thousands of progressive Christian communities, LtQ2 Home Edition is licensed for private home viewing and includes three DVD discs with twenty-one 20-minute episodes.

In this groundbreaking work, John Hick refutes the traditional Christian understanding of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, the divine incarnation, he explains, is best understood metaphorically.

Since its publication by Fortress Press in 1992, Mark and Method has been an invaluable resource for the study of Mark, and of the range of methods used in interpreting the New Testament. This second edition offers a new introduction and chapters brought up to date with the latest developments in interpretation, including new chapters on Cultural Studies and Post-Colonial Criticism.

Students of the history and legacy of the West’s Protestant Reformation over its past millennium or thousand-year period can in contrast observe that “RiP” can have another connotation, which implies and express a less peaceful changing of attitudes and chain of events. What emerges is not a single “Reformation” but at least five “Re-formations” or modifications and amendments of attitudes, belief-systems and doctrinal confessions.

And for those of us who had or have fathers who were never really Dads,
For those who have dreaded this day for as long as we can remember,
For those who are reminded every year of what should have been, what could have been but hasn’t.

You are a jar of water. The Christ is turning you into wine right now. You don’t know how. I don’t know how. I daresay Jesus didn’t know how either. Stuff is going on in that jar of yours that nobody can explain.