Added The Quest for the Historical Paul (Part C) (2025) by John MacDonald to the Historicity page under Christianity in the Modern Documents section of the Secular Web Library.
In this third of four articles, John MacDonald explores how John specialist Hugo Méndez appeals to an emerging consensus that there is an intertextual relationship between Paul’s letters and the Gospel of John. In particular, MacDonald looks at the lateness of the letters of Paul and how they might be appropriating the Gospel of John, such as with the indwelling of Christ’s spirit.
New in the Kiosk: The Silent Reverberation: How Nonbelief Shapes the Concept of God (2025) by David Falls
In this essay David Falls traces how theological ideas evolve under the pressure of doubt. From teleological and cosmological reasoning to modern redefinitions of faith, skepticism acts not as an enemy, but as an engine of change, continually refining what “God” means. Paradoxically, unbelief keeps the concept alive by forcing it to adapt to reason, evidence, and the expanding reach of science.
Recommended reading: The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (2013) by John Dominic Crossan
In The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus, leading New Testament scholar and former Jesus Seminar member John Dominic Crossan shows us how the parables present throughout the New Testament not only reveal what Jesus wanted to teach, but also provide the key for explaining how the Gospels’ writers sought to explain the Prophet of Nazareth to the world. In this meaningful exploration of the metaphorical stories told by Jesus and the Gospel writers, Crossan combines the biblical expertise of his The Greatest Prayer with a historical and social analysis that harkens closely to his Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, creating an illuminating and nuanced exploration of the Scripture that fans of Marcus Borg and Bart Ehrman will find fascinating and essential.