When in Mark 5:43 Jesus tells Jairus and his wife not to tell anyone about “this,” something impossible given that they would have to pretend henceforth that she was dead in an empty grave, Mark mean s that Jesus means not to disclose the method of healing/resurrecting the girl, not to the fact that she was alive. Maybe he wanted everyone to think he was simply an effective doctor, not a miracle worker?

This set of questions was inspired by a YouTube video, "If Atheists Talked About The Hulk Like Jordan Peterson Talks About The Bible."

Does the Bible ever rename characters for discernible literary of theological reasons?

Preacher often say the body and the flesh are not the same thing, but is there an actual Greek basis for this distinction?

Is the Hulk a decent representation of the Paulinist or Marcionist "Fleshly Man"?

What reason is there to posit the existence of a Signs Source underlying John?

I regularly hear that many modern critical scholars are both Christians and hold certain mainstream positions regarding the suspect history of books such as the Pastorals, at least one of the Epistles of Peter, etc. Do you know whether, as Christians, they tend to accept the books as pious forgeries and still somehow inspired as scripture?

If you were a somewhat conservative Christian what one book of the Bible would you consider the most problematic to your belief, the most embarrassing, the most open to attack from the outside? And why?

When you write a scholarly book or paper, do you typically just write out the entirety of your argument, and add in the relevant references later? Or do you stop and start, inserting references as you go? Or some mixture of the two?

Theme music provided by: Peter Benjamin - composer for media www.peterbenjaminmusic.org [email protected]