Well, I’ve talked about the resurrection narrative, and I’ve talked about the birth narrative, so now seems a good time to talk about the trial and crucifixion narrative. This is mostly for completeness: unlike the birth and resurrection, the stories contain few supernatural claims, and it doesn’t seem so surprising that someone claiming to be the Messiah and upsetting established authorities might end up being crucified.

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In a previous post, I stated that I don’t think we have enough evidence to demonstrate the resurrection of Jesus. And I don’t think this is likely to change. I can’t imagine what additional evidence could surface that would overcome the uncertainty of such an extraordinary historical claim.

But what about if there was a way to demonstrate it, once and for all? Time travel, for example. Would you take it? And if so, what might you learn from it?

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A few days ago, I discussed a positive case for the resurrection story having grown over time. There is a similar case for Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem being a later addition, though it’s a lot simpler: Only Matthew and Luke make explicit claims about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, they have completely separate stories, and prophecy gives a good reason for them to want to claim a birth in Bethlehem.

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Today is Easter Sunday. A time when many Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For some, it is just a matter of faith: they are completely confident that their Lord was raised, and no evidence is required. For others, this is considered one of the strongest arguments for the truth of Christianity. In fact, some skeptics who have attempted to disprove it came to the conclusion the evidence is too strong, and became outspoken Christian apologists.

A few days ago, I questioned the argument that I considered the weakest: that 500 believers saw the resurrected Christ at one time. It was always my intention to go back and address the entire resurrection claim, and discuss why I don’t consider it compelling.

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In the last few weeks, I’ve been talking about my experience speaking at BibleTech in 2010. One of the biggest problems I had was trying to cover too much. In my talk I spoke about Bible software and usability: Why we should care about personal notes and why Bible software couldn’t just replace paper.

What I want to discuss in this post is my own personal vision: What I had already implemented in BPBible, and what my future plans were. Though it was meant to be an important part of my talk, none of it ended up covered at BibleTech.

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In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul states that the resurrected Jesus Christ appeared to 500 brothers at one time. With Easter coming up this week, this is one of the resurrection claims that will be talked about as historical fact. Believers lean heavily on this record because it is viewed as a very early creed with no time for embellishment. But can it bear the weight?

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Recently, I reflected on my experience speaking at BibleTech in 2010. The key starting point for my talk was that lots of people were doing Bible study using paper Bibles, word processors, and other general tools. Why weren’t they using our specially designed Bible software? Was there something wrong in the way we designed software? Or were our users wrong for not realising how much better our software was?

I think this mind-set illustrates a key problem with technology-led solutions. It’s very tempting as a software developer to think that if we take an existing process and replicate it exactly in software it will end up better. But what we actually find is that we were unable to replicate it exactly. Sometimes this leads to complaints, other times the system we build is just ignored.

While both Bible software and technology have changed a lot since 2010, I think the key usability principles I talked about then still apply.

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From mid-2012 to mid-2016 I was the editor of Salt Cellar: a magazine for Christadelphian young people in Melbourne. One year ago today, I produced my final Salt Cellar and wrote my final editorial. It contained an important message about seeking out truth, though that message was concealed behind scriptural wording. Now I can reveal the real message behind the editorial.

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