Pursuing Veritas

Reflections by Jacob J. Prahlow
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  • New Testament/Early Christianity Timeline

    One of my academic projects includes working toward a historical G.U.T. (Grand Unified Theory) of the early history of Christianity. This type of project is by no means a new endeavor, though this doesn’t stop me from pouring over timelines and historical reconstructions to appropriate information for my own work. As a starting point for…

  • Reflections on “Ephrem, Athanasius, and the ‘Arian’ Threat”

    This post is part of an ongoing series examining Ephrem the Syrian and early Syrian Christianity. In her chapter “Ephrem, Athanasius, and the ‘Arian’ threat” of Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth Century Syria (CUA Press, 2008), Christine Shepardson compares the anti-Arian rhetoric of these two great defenders of Nicene Christology, arguing that…

  • The Marcion Problem: Hippolytus and Eusebius

    This post is part of an ongoing series examining Marcion of Sinope and his influence on the development of the New Testament canon. Hippolytus, who incidentally was the first anti-pope in the Roman church, wrote against Marcion in his Refutation of All Heresies sometime after the year 200 CE.[29] Hippolytus argued that Marcion relied upon…

  • Happy Memorial Day

    “True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.” –Arthur Ash “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” –John 15:13 (ESV)

  • Recommended Reading: May 16-22

    If you engage one article this week, read Is Christianity a Religion or a Relationship? Worship or Ritual? by Reed Metcalf. For those of you with more reading time on this fine Spring day, I encourage you to consider the selections below. As always, if you think there is something else that I should be…

  • Platonism and Paul?

    The dialogue between faith and reason has long held a place of prominence in the Christian tradition. Sometimes this relationship has been understood positively—construed in the words of Anselm of Canterbury as “faith seeking understanding”—and other times it has been construed negatively—perhaps best represented by Tertullian of Carthage when he asked, “What has Athens to…

  • Church Search Update (May 2015)

    I have been meaning to write this post for some time now, at least since early December of last year and certainly since mid-January of this year. As many readers know, my wife (Hayley) and I have been undergoing a Church Search for nearly two years now. This post is intended to a) provide anyone…

  • Reflections on Ephrem’s Commentaries

    This post is part of an ongoing series examining Ephrem the Syrian and early Syriac Christianity. Though said to have written a commentary on every book of the Bible, the only authentic and extant prose commentaries of Ephrem the Syrian are those on Genesis and (part of) Exodus. These commentaries, following the more traditional “text…

  • The Marcion Problem: Irenaeus

    This post is part of an ongoing series examining Marcion of Sinope and his influence on the development of the New Testament canon. In some ways Marcion was a rather popular figure among Christians during the mid to late second century, as numerous writers and apologists made reference to his beliefs and churches. These treatments…

  • Book Review: Restoring All Things (Smith and Stonestreet)

    “Christians are called to live for the good of the world. This requires understanding and action. We must think clearly about the world and engage deeply when and where we can.” In his essay “On the Reading of Old Books”, C.S. Lewis once admonished his readers to engage numerous old books for every new book…