Given the rapid globalization and synthesis of all human thought that is occurring throughout the world today as more and more Eastern works are translated and transliterated into Western languages and are the topic of much intellectual pursuit by not… Read More ›
Christianity
Islamic Philosophy: Allāh as the Final Cause
One cannot properly explore the evolution of metaphysics and theology in Western civilization and its metamorphosis into science, without having some level of understanding of its development and evolution after the so-called fall of the Roman Empire through the Middle Ages,… Read More ›
Early Christian Theology: Jesus, Gnosis, and Logos
With the Hellenic philosophic tradition and culture firmly planted in the Mediterranean in the last few centuries BCE and the first century CE, we see a drastic shift in theological and philosophical thought as sages, mystics and philosophers alike try to… Read More ›
The Seeds of Christianity: The Hellenization of Judaism
Two of the most influential Greek philosophical traditions in antiquity, in both the Hellenic period as well as the period of Roman influence and domination, were Stoicism and Epicureanism, the former of which exerted considerable influence on early Christian theology, which in… Read More ›
Ancient Persian Theology: Zarathustra and the Avesta
In the 2nd and first millennium BCE, some 1500 years before Christianity and the Roman Empire spread throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, we see evidence of the prevalence of a faith that has come to be known as Zoroastrianism, a term… Read More ›
The Ancient Hebrews: The Tanakh, Torah and Five Books of Moses
As a specific example of how a word, a concept, can be disfigured and lose its fullness and richness of meaning as it moves through successive languages of translation and cultural evolution, let’s look at how the Hebrew word Torah, which… Read More ›
Judeo-Christian Cosmology: A Comparative Perspective
The primary source for Judeo-Christian cosmology is can be found in the early part of the Bible[1], primarily in Genesis of course[2]. The challenge when looking at the Bible from a purely academic and historical perspective however, is that one… Read More ›
Religion and Politics: Separating Oil from Water
Searching for a a simple progression or development of monotheistic religions in the ancient world is no easy exercise by any standards. Monotheism clearly had tentacles that stretched far back into the dawn on civilized man, at least as far… Read More ›
The Fisherman and the Net: Geometric Symbolism in the Gospel of John (II of II)
What we’re left with if we are to believe this geometric formulation of the miraculous tale of Jesus and the fishes with his seven disciples in the Sea of Galilee in the Gospel of John is a geometric figure… Read More ›
The Fisherman and the Net: Geometric Symbolism in the Gospel of John (I of II)
At this juncture a word must be said about some astronomical events and progressions that were at work around the time of Christ which played some role in the formulation of the interpretation of the life and teachings of Jesus… Read More ›
A Walk with Moses
Moses and his One God: Jewish Roots Christianity and Islam are the most wide spread and influential monotheistic religions in the world today by any measure, and both sprung from and were heavily influenced by the monotheistic religions, and metaphysical and… Read More ›
The Gnostics: Jesus as the Revealed Logos
In contrast to what we would consider the more orthodox interpretation of Jesus through the doctrine of Logos, and incorporating the Wisdom tradition of the Jews at the same time, we find another influential Gnostic teacher who comes from the… Read More ›
The Seeds of Christianity: The Hellenization of Judaism
With light and insight shed on the competing philosophical and theological systems from the 3rd century BCE to the first few centuries after the death of Christ and the advent of early Christianity, Middle Platonism and Stoicism in particular, we… Read More ›
The Enlightenment: The Tree of Knowledge Takes Root
After the fall of the Roman Empire and into the middle and latter part of the Middle Ages in the West, mainly in the period from the 11th century CE until the end of the Renaissance and the advent of… Read More ›
Knowledge and the Intellect: Extracting Truth from Scripture
Outside of his thesis coming together, with some clear indicators of cultural borrowing among Ancient Western civilizations with respect to the development of theology and philosophy, Charlie now had a much better context within which to view Niels’s letter which… Read More ›