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Exodus: Gods and Kings Review - Action epic loosely based on the Bible

I know the film has been out for a while now, but I missed seeing it in the cinema and so have only just seen it. I'm sure there's others out there who still haven't watched this and are wondering whether it's worth the time and effort, so here goes: my review of Exodus.  The film begins with Moses later in life living in the Pharaoh's palace as his adopted son along side his half brother. Now I'm not sure if this part was based on any jewish Midrash or if it was purely artistic license, but either way I thought it was well done to show how Moses' life could well have gone being brought up Egyptian. Apart from some pretty epic looking battle scenes, t...

I am one with the Force; the Force is with me – A Star Wars theology

Warning: Minor spoilers ahead!I say “minor” because there’s no plot points given away here, I’m just discussing an aspect of a character in the film, but I know some people (like me) don’t like to hear too much of anything before they see a film! If you have seen the new Rogue One film though, you will be familiar with a guy called Chirrut Imwe. Whenever he is seen on screen, you will find him repeating a short mantra: “I am one with the Force; the Force is with me” whenever he feels threatened or in times of peril and wants protection. Now, Chirrut is not a Jedi (apparently [actual spoilers in this link]), but is a Force-sensitive “warrior monk...

Creedal Christians: Introduction

...s://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/who-has-not-made-me-a-woman/ ...

Creedal Christians: The Nicene Creed

...The Nicene Creed — what is it and why is it called that? This creed gets its name from a time and place: the first ecumenical Church council held at Nicaea, which is now known as İznik in northwestern Turkey, in 325 AD. Now that may raise another question for you: what is an ecumenical council? Well, to explain more about the Nicene Creed, we are going to have to take a look at The First Council of Nicaea in order to better understand why this creed was written. First things first though; an “ecumenical council” is ideally a Church-wide meeting where all the Bishops from all across the Church come together to hold a very large and very important meetin...

26 Differences Between Muhammad and Jesus

...If you’ve ever spent any time online, either in random Facebook comment threads or reading the news, I’m sure you’ve come across the claim that Islam and Christianity are basically the same and that “we all worship the same God”, getting lumped together as an “Abrahamic religion” along with Judaism. Muslims claim Islam “is the completed final version of the previous messages originally revealed to Moses and Jesus” which came to “correct the deviations of Christianity”, which had apparently become corrupt by the seventh century when Muhammad came along. But for something which is meant to come from the same God at its core, it would sugges...

Did the Qumran community predict the coming of Jesus?

...I'm going to start a new category here for "General Interest" which will be for things I see or read about that I think are interesting or informative about the Bible, Christianity or the Faith in general; but which aren't necessarily topics I could, or would need to, write a full blog post about. I'll kick off this new venture with an brief look at something I read the other day from the Dead Sea scrolls which is very interesting – Qumran text 4Q521. It gives us a glimpse of early jewish expectations of the coming Messiah from the time before Jesus arrived, and shows just how Jesus did actually meet those expectations. For example, when John asks his disci...