“Windows To Spirituality”
Authorship Of the Johannine Works The authorship of the Johannine works (the Gospel of John, Epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation) has been debated by scholars since at least the 2nd century AD. The main debate centers on who authored the writings, and which of the writings, if any, can be...
Authorship Of the Pauline Epistles This article covers the Authorship of the Pauline Epistles. The Pauline epistles are the fourteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle, although many dispute the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews as being a Pauline epistle. There is nearly universal consensus in...
Novum Testamentum Graece Novum Testamentum Graece (The New Testament in Greek) is a critical edition of the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, forming the basis of most modern Bible translations and biblical criticism. It is also known as the Nestle-Aland edition after its most influential editors, Eberhard Nestle and Kurt Aland. The text,...
Biblical And Quranic Narratives This article covers Biblical And Quranic Narratives. The Quran, the central religious text of Islam, contains references to more than fifty people and events also found in the Bible. While the stories told in each book are generally comparable, important differences sometimes emerge. The versions written in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament predate...
The Gospel Of Philip The Gospel of Philip is one of the Gnostic Gospels, a text of New Testament apocrypha, dated to around the 3rd century but lost in modern times until an Egyptian man red is covered it by accident, buried in a cave near Nag Hammadi, in 1945....
What Is Biblical Hermeneutics? Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics which involves the study of principles of interpretation for all forms of communication, nonverbal and verbal. While Jewish and Christian Biblical hermeneutics have some overlap and dialogue, they have distinctly separate...
What Is Biblical Apocrypha? The biblical apocrypha (‘hidden’) denotes the collection of apocryphal ancient books found in some editions of Christian Bibles in a separate section between the Old and New Testaments or as an appendix after the New Testament. Some Christian Churches include some or all of the same texts...
Internal Consistency Of The Bible The internal consistency of the Bible concerns the coherence and textual integrity of the Bible. Disputes regarding biblical consistency have a long history. Classic texts that discuss questions of inconsistency from a critical secular perspective include the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus by Baruch Spinoza, the Dictionnaire philosophique of Voltaire, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and The Age of Reason by Thomas...
Textual Criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants in either manuscripts or printed books. Scribes can make alterations when copying manuscripts by hand. Given a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original...
Synoptic Gospels The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose content is largely distinct. The term synoptic (synopticus) comes via Latin from the Greek σύνοψις, synopsis, i.e....
What Are The Deuterocanonical Books? The deuterocanonical books are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be canonical books of the Old Testament, but which Protestant denominations regard as apocrypha. They date from 300 BC–100...
List Of Gospels Here is the list of Gospels. A gospel (a contraction of Old English god spel meaning “good news/glad tidings (of the kingdom of God)”, comparable to Greek εὐαγγέλιον, evangelion) is a written account of the career and teachings of Jesus. The term originally meant the Christian message itself, but in...
Book Of Moses The Book of Moses, dictated by Joseph Smith, is part of the scriptural canon for some in the Latter Day Saint movement. The book begins with the “Visions of Moses,” a prologue to the story of the creation and the fall of man(Moses chapter 1), and continues with material corresponding to...
Word Of Wisdom Of LDS This article covers the Word of Wisdom of LDS. The “Word of Wisdom” is the common name of a section of the Doctrine and Covenants, a book considered by many churches within the Latter Day Saint movement to consist of revelations from God. It is also the name...
Upanishads – The Secret Wisdom This article covers Upanishads (The Secret Wisdom). A history of pantheism and scientific pantheism by Paul Harrison. Thou art the dark-blue bird and the green parrot with red eyes, Thou hast the lightning as thy child. Thou art the seasons and the seas. [Svetasvatara 4.2.4]...
Upanishads And Yoga This article covers the relationship between Upanishads and Yoga, written by By Sanderson Beck. The wise soul is not born nor does it die. This one has not come from anywhere nor has it become anyone. Unborn, eternal, constant, primal, this one is not killed when the...
Bhagavad Gita Passages Here are some Bhagavad Gita Passages. The undisciplined person eats too much, or doesn’t eat enough. The undisciplined person sleeps too much, or doesn’t sleep enough… The spiritual discipline that destroys suffering goes to the person who eats the proper amount of food, does the proper amount...
What is Sutra? Sutra (sūtra सूत्र “string” or “thread”. sutta) in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a condensed manual or text. Sutras are a genre of ancient and medieval Indian texts found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism....
What Is Vedanga? The Vedanga (वेदाङ्ग, vedāṅga, “limbs of the Veda”) are six auxiliary disciplines in Hinduism that developed in ancient times, and have been connected with the study of the Vedas. These are: Shiksha (śikṣā): phonetics, phonology, pronunciation. This auxiliary discipline has focussed on the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, accent, quantity, stress,...
What Is Itihasa? Itihasa, meaning history in Sanskrit, consists of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana (sometimes the Puranas too, are included). The Mahabharata includes the story of the Kurukshetra War and also preserves the traditions of the Lunar dynasty in the form of embedded tales. The Puranas narrate the universal history as...
