This is a short survey of the most important scholarly writings about the Acts of John and its gospel section. It covers writings between 1800--1900, with special attention to how those books and articles reflect the historiography brought about by the Enlightenment movement

Modern critics of religion tend to quote Xenophanes. But what did Xenophanes himself write in his own language? This video surveys some of his best quotes in the original Greek and infers what he really thought. It turns out that he didn't have much in common with the modern critics who quote him.

In this post of Theology and Religion with J.D. Reiner, we will continue our discussion of the philosophy of history by examining its speculative branch. Last time, we defined that field as answering the "why" questions about history. Within the next ten to fifteen minutes, I will attempt to summarize the major answers given in western civilization, from the ancient world until the late nineteenth century. Obviously, that will be very difficult to do with justice, but you are certainly free to explore further by looking up the information in the footnotes. Again, most of the information here comes from M.C. Lemon's very thorough 2003 survey, Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students. Visit jdreiner.com to read or listen to more content and learn about my work. Email me at jonathandreiner@gmail.com to get in touch. To donate through PayPal, paste this link into your browser: paypal.me/jonathandreiner To donate Bitcoin for my work, use this public key: bc1qwnu9exmhp3ugcepvxvhn5tyw765zgeskgfm200 Footnotes from Website Post 1. Patrick Gardner, "Philosophy of History," Encyclopædia Britannica, June 16, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/philosophy-of-history. 2. M.C. Lemon, Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students (London: Routledge, 2003), 28-29. 3. Lemon, 31-35. 4. Lemon, 35-41. 5. Lemon, 52-53. 6. Lemon, 61-62. 7. Lemon, 74-78. 8. Costelloe, "Giambattista Vico," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, August 2, 2018. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vico/#Bib; see also Lemon, 127-67. 9. Lemon, 184-86. 10. Lemon, 187-94. 11. Lemon, 196-200. 12. Philip Cary, Philosophy and Religion in the West (Chantilly: The Great Courses, 1999), 116; see also Lemon, 213-21. 13. Lemon, 253-70.

Papyrus Berlin 11710 is a set of two small gospel fragments that record an otherwise unknown conversation between Jesus and his disciple Nathaniel. The scene is this text is reminiscent of Jesus’ call to Nathaniel to be his disciple. That episode appears in the first chapter of John’s gospel. Because the texts are so similar, it would be a good idea to compare them and examine them in a critical manner. That is the subject of today’s little presentation. Sources Ehrman, Bart, and Zlatko Plese. The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2011. Society of Biblical Literature Greek New Testament. For the images of the papyrus, I used the Berlin museum papyrus database: https://berlpap.smb.museum/record/?result=0&Alle=11710&lang=en.