The gospel of Matthew has Satan take Jesus to the temple roof and challenge him to jump off. Then it has him take Jesus to a mountain and offer him the world in exchange for worshiping him.
The gospel of Luke has Satan take Jesus to a mountain and offer him the world in exchange for worshiping him. Then it has him take Jesus to the temple roof and challenge him to jump off.
Continue reading Did Satan tell Jesus to jump off the temple before or after he told him to worship him?According to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the “last supper” happened on the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread. These gospels all equate the Festival of Unleavened Bread with the Passover, and say the last supper was the Passover meal.
But the Passover meal is eaten at the beginning of Passover, and Leviticus says the Festival of Unleavened Bread starts the day after that. So the last supper would have to be the day after the Passover meal.
And then there’s the gospel of John, which says the last supper happened before the Passover festival. After Jesus was arrested, the Passover meal was still to come. And when Jesus was brought before Pilate, Passover still hadn’t happened. Passover certainly didn’t start the day before the last supper, according to John.
Continue reading Was the last supper before, during, or after the Passover?The book of Revelation reveals that one day, angels are going to harvest the grapes of the Earth and gather them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. Then someone (identified later in the book as Jesus) is going to trample those grapes until he’s surrounded by an enormous flood of blood from the grapes.
So that’s kinda weird. Why would grapes have blood in them? Is this supposed to be some kind of miracle or something? I don’t normally do this, but let’s assume the Bible is making a metaphor, and see where that takes us. Maybe when it says blood, it means grape juice!
…Or maybe when it says grapes, it means people. Yeah, that one’s more interesting. And more likely to be what they intended, I guess. So, how many people would Jesus have to murder to get that much blood? Let’s find out…
Continue reading How long before Jesus crushes everyone to death?According to the gospel of John, the disciples received the Holy Spirit when Jesus appeared to them after the resurrection.
But according to Acts, it was at least a few days after that. It says on one occasion (which could have been as many as 40 days after the first time he reappeared to them), he told them they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days. That was a gift they had not yet received. And Jesus was not present when the tongues of fire later came down on them and filled them with the Holy Spirit.
Continue reading When did the apostles receive the Holy Spirit?2 Kings tells about Jehoiachin, one of the last kings of Judah. It says Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon besieged Jerusalem until Jehoiachin surrendered. Then Nebuchadnezzar took him to Babylon as a prisoner, and made Jehoiachin’s uncle king of Judah instead.
37 years later, Nebuchadnezzar’s son Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, and he was nicer to Jehoiachin. He released Jehoiachin from prison on the 27th day of the 12th month.
Continue reading When was Jehoiachin released from prison?Of all God’s children, who is the firstborn? Paul says Jesus is God’s firstborn, having been there before he made anything else. But the gospel of John suggests that Jesus wasn’t created in the beginning, much less born. He was just always there. So the only way Jesus could be God’s firstborn would be if God had no other children before Jesus was actually born, 2000 years ago.
Is that really the case? The Bible says it’s not. Instead, it calls David God’s firstborn.
God also says Ephraim is his firstborn son, and Ephraim was born long before David. But wait, that same verse also says God is Israel’s father. And Israel was Ephraim’s grandfather. So Israel must be a son of God who was born before Ephraim, right?
Continue reading Who is God’s firstborn?In 2 Kings, it says Nebuzaradan, a commander working for the king of Babylon, burned down all the important buildings in Jerusalem, including the temple, the palace, and all the houses. It says he did this on the 7th day of the 5th month of the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar.
Continue reading When did Nebuzaradan burn down the buildings of Jerusalem?I made a timeline of all the kings of Israel and/or Judah mentioned in the Bible.
According to Matthew, Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod.1 Herod’s death, and therefore Jesus’s birth, was in 1 BC or earlier.
According to Luke, Jesus was born while Quirinius was governor of Syria. Quirinius became governor in AD 6, which means Jesus wasn’t born till several years after Herod died. So if Luke is right, Herod wouldn’t have even been around to try to kill Jesus, as Matthew claims he did.
Continue reading When was Jesus born?Several prophecies in the Bible mention a future event called “the day of the Lord”. Here’s what we know about that day: On the day of the Lord, the sun and moon will be darkened, and the heavens and earth will be destroyed. Jesus will return in between those two events, after the sun and moon have already been darkened, but while the heavens and earth still exist. And when Jesus returns, his dead followers will be resurrected. So those things all happen on the same day.
Another future event is mentioned in the last few chapters of the Bible. It says after many apocalyptic disasters occur, the devil will be temporarily locked up and the world will get a break for a thousand years, before the world truly ends. But when will the day of the Lord occur, relative to the thousand years?
Continue reading Will the day of the Lord be at the beginning or the end of the thousand years?