By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.’ It’s one of the best-known and most widely quoted utterances from the New Testament, and it appears in a relatively short section of the Bible which is replete with famous utterances. But what does Jesus mean by ‘blessed are the meek’? Who qualifies as ‘the meek’, and why are they worthy of blessing?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’: so begins the Book of Genesis and, with it, the Old Testament, and, with that, the Bible. But where did this Creation story come from, ‘in the beginning’? How was it shaped? Did it rely on earlier accounts? And is there really one Creation story in the Book of Genesis, or are there, in fact, two? And how many gods, after all, did the creating, according to the Bible?
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The term ‘scapegoat’ is well-known: it refers to an innocent person who has to carry the blame for something on behalf of other people. But where does the term ‘scapegoat’ originate?
‘Scapegoating’ originates in the Bible, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, which tells of how two goats would be ritually chosen, with one being killed as a sacrifice and the other being released into the wilderness.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The phrase ‘the writing is on the wall’ is now often used to describe an impending disaster. But where does it originate? It actually has its roots in the story of Belshazzar’s feast from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. But who Belshazzar was, and what this famous writing that appeared on the wall actually meant, are questions that require further analysis.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The story of how the sun stood still during one of Joshua’s battles is well-known, although that battle it was and why the sun might have stood still are questions whose answers are less well-known, and, in the case of the ‘why’ question, may be ultimately unanswerable altogether.