Like all Americans, I grew up looking at a flag with my hand over my heart as I pledged my life to it at schools, sports, and even church. It had the word “God” in it, so I figured I was on the right track, but as I grew up, I started to note too…
If the giants existed before the flood and the flood reached the highest peak of the mountains, how were there still giants after the flood? There are several answers we might propose. As a simple proposal, we might wonder if they saw what Noah was doing, took heed, and built their own boats. As a…
I know it’s a struggle for some when the Bible uses myth to tell truth instead of literal history. I wrote a super short song about how I find peace with such things. Verse 1From apple trees to wardrobesThe Shire lands to MordorA wood in which worlds might exist Mythology is calling meLouder than realityTelling…
At Nerd Church we played a game in which we had to build a society in a fictional world and see how long we could get it to last before it caved under the weight of its social problems. The scenario I offered was a world in which angels and humans procreated and gave birth…
As an exorcist, I have had to deal with many kinds of demons, each one with a different strength, weakness, and personality. When I started this ministry, I’d try to force them out, but it rarely worked. It wasn’t my Christian authority that was in question—indeed, I had forced one of them to admit that my…
Many have heard about the “mark of Cain,” even though no one knows what it is. Whatever it was, its intent was to protect Cain from being killed by anyone now that he was a known fugitive for murdering his brother. This mark communicated in some way that if anyone killed Cain, vengeance would be…
I worked quite a bit with serpentine imagery in an allegorical fantasy book I wrote. The villain was a huge snake with robot legs and robot wings, who tried to pretend he was a dragon. Temptation was offered by snakes that tried (very poorly) to pretend they were harmless sheep. As humans gave into temptation,…
The story of Satan’s fall is told in several ways, but the general narrative remains the same. In Ezekiel 28, he’s described as a wise and beautiful cherub who lived in Eden. But once his pride went to his head, he sinned and was cast to the ground. Isaiah 14 explains this pride further, telling…
You may have been told that women have one less rib than men, but this is not true, as both men and women have 24 ribs. You may have also been told that God made Eve from Adam’s rib, but this is not correct either, as God made Eve out of Adam’s ṣēlāʿ, a Hebrew…
Many Christians are insistent that God created the world exactly as described in Genesis 1 and that if you question this, you’re not saved. But this argument is inconsistent, for no one actually holds to the creation story as it’s written—everyone adds some level of science to its account. Ancient people had a mythological understanding…
Glory is a difficult word to explain, even for theologians. In a literal sense, it can be something like weight or heaviness. Perhaps this is why priests couldn’t stand up in Solomon’s Temple when God’s glory entered it or why a common manifestation of the Holy Spirit is for people to suddenly drop to the…
Jamin Bradley 