Tag: history

After being inspired by the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey video game, guest writer Chris Flux visited Greece in October to check out some of the ancient sites in Athens, Corinth and Delphi. At each location Chris learnt more about history and the Christian faith. This three-part mini series is about how the three locations deepened Chris’

After being inspired by the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey video game, guest writer Chris Flux visited Greece in October to check out some of the ancient sites in Athens, Corinth and Delphi. At each location Chris learnt more about history and the Christian faith. This three-part mini series is about how the three locations deepened Chris’

In a previous post (#2) I promised to show how Augustine’s 5th-century text On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis has some remarkably good science in it about the earth (not flat!) and about the cosmos. I would like to give five examples of his good science below. Amongst those who like to spend their time

A few days ago I finished reading Tom Holland’s excellent new book, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. It really is worth reading if you want to understand how ideas sown at the very beginning of Christianity — the idea that all people are created equal, “Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and

Last week (24 September) the Times published a story about a remarkable piece of detective work by the University of California, San Diego which seems to confirm the existence of the nation of Edom in the 11th century B.C., “before any king reigned over the Israelites” (Genesis 36:31). The University’s work of “cyber-archaeology” compared the

By Graham Harter I was interested recently to see that historian Tom Holland, in his new book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, refers to the change in the meaning of the word ‘saint’ down the centuries of Christianity. Anybody who has read the New Testament will be aware that, there, the term ‘saints’

There is a recurrent charge that the mediaeval (Catholic) Church taught that the Earth is flat. It frequently does the rounds whenever people wish to point out the antediluvian nature of some other group’s beliefs — whether that be Christians, Republicans in the U.S., or whoever. But did the mediaeval Church actually teach that the

What is the ‘literal’ interpretation of Genesis 1—3, the chapters detailing the creation of the world and the fall of man? Happily this is a question which the great theologian Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354—430) answers in his twelve-volume work ‘On the Literal Meaning of Genesis’ (Latin De Genesi ad Litteram), completed in the year

In the modern world we often assume that our ancestors in the Middle Ages were simply gullible about Christianity. But is this really the case? In the first of a series of reflections on Anselm of Canterbury’s ‘Why God Became Man’ (Cur Deus Homo), I will consider this question. Of course, people in Europe didn’t

One of the books I read during my etimasthe summer break was Peter J. Williams’ Can We Trust the Gospels? In it, Dr. Williams puts forward a range of considerations why the four Gospels of the New Testament are not only credible, but should be believed. He explicitly does not claim that the truth of