Ask · Questions by category
Bible People & History
The men and women of Scripture, and the history behind the text.
- 1Who was Moses?Moses was the Hebrew prophet who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, received the Law of God at Mount Sinai, and led the people through forty years in the wilderness to the edge of the promised land. The Bible's verdict on him is unmatched for an Old Testament figure: no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.
- 2Who was Paul?Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles: a Pharisee who persecuted the church, met the risen Jesus on the Damascus road, and spent the rest of his life planting churches around the Roman world and writing the letters that fill much of the New Testament. No other figure explains how a crucified Jewish Messiah came to be worshipped from Jerusalem to Rome within one generation.
- 3Was Jesus a real person?Yes. Whatever a person concludes about his claims, the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth is confirmed by sources outside the Bible, including one that hated his followers. The Roman historian Tacitus records that Christus suffered the death penalty under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius, and the Jewish historian Josephus wrote about him within the same century. The debate worth having is not whether he lived, but who he was.
Where these lead
The questions these answers open onto, in the neighbouring categories.
Why does the Bible have 66 books?Scripture & How We Got ItWho wrote the Bible?Scripture & How We Got ItDid Jesus claim to be God?JesusIs Jesus God?Jesus
Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.