Category: Reframing Christianity

  • Baptism

    Baptism

    At the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark, in the fourth verse we are introduced to John the Baptist. We are told he demanded that everyone be baptized, and that he was the baptizer, and he baptized the Judean people in the Jordan River. This scene has been captured in poetry and song, paintings…

  • Gamala – Capital of Rebellion

    Around 6 CE, the Galilieans had their own tea-party moment when a local Roman governor ordered a census, and a fellow from Gamla named Judas began an organized resistance to Roman rule, convincing folks to not let the Romans count them by setting aflame any farms or houses of those who did. This Judas of…

  • The Story of Mark

    The Story of Mark

    Scholars generally agree that the Gospel according to Mark was the first one of the four Gospels written, and that Luke and Matthew were written subsequently with knowledge of the book of Mark, but also with a secondary source – known as ‘Q’. Much of what appears in Luke and Matthew seems to have been…

  • Framework: Trinitarianism

    The restoration of the Flavian cult and how it became the Roman Catholic church.

  • Framework: Flavian cult

    The development of the Flavian cult and the degredation of empire.

  • Framework: Imperial Cult

    The transition to empire and the establishment of the Imperial Cult.

  • Framework: Introduction

    This is a summary of everything I understand about the creation and development of the thing we call “Christianity”, from its very start to the seventh century or so, and written as concisely as possible. Due to the nature of the topic, there are quite a few connections I’ve had to make on my own…

  • Reframing the Gospels

    This project is an analysis of the Gospel text in the context of a Rome-focused history of the early church. As elements are encountered in the text, a note is created here and appended to as needed. In the Reader’s Notes are the verse-by-verse translations, discussions, and contextualization. The anticipated result is a more fluid…