Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to meet another writer on our 1st-century list. Today, our lucky winner is Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, aka Seneca. This illustrious Roman lived between 4 BCE and 65 CE and spent his life as a philosopher, statesman, writer, and satirist. People regard him […]
1st-Century Fridays (Series)
Posted inHistory, Religion
The Silence of Velleius Paterculus (1st-Century Fridays #5)
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi, y’all! Welcome back. It being Friday again, let us turn our attention to another 1st-century writer. This time, our subject is Marcus Velleius Paterculus (19 BCE – 31 CE). This Roman historian lived through the wildest years of the early Roman Empire. Thus, he wrote during those critical years (from our perspective) of 1-35 […]
Posted inHistory, Religion
The Silence of Philo of Alexandria (1st-Century Fridays #4)
Reading Time: 9 minutes Hi and welcome back! For today’s 1st-Century Friday, we have a treat in store: Philo of Alexandria, also called Philo Judaeus. He lived smack in the middle of that critically-important period we’ve identified as the 30s, roughly. Not only that, but he was also Jewish and highly-placed in court circles. Out of everybody on our […]
Posted inHistory
Meet Titus Livius, AKA Livy (1st-Century Fridays #3)
Reading Time: 7 minutes Today, we’ll see what Livy wrote — or rather, didn’t — about the wild-eyed rock star apocalypse-huckster supposedly stirring things up in Jerusalem.
Posted inHistory, Religion
Meet Apollonius of Tyana (1st-Century Fridays #2)
Reading Time: 8 minutes Today, let’s check out this fascinating rival for 1st-century affections — and check out what we can of his writings.
Posted inHistory, Religion
How My Faith in Biblical Literalism Died (1st-Century Fridays #1)
Reading Time: 7 minutes We’re about to start a new topic that I expect to last a while: 1st-century writers. First, though, let me show you why this topic is so important to me. See, these 1st-century writers’ utter silence about one particular subject rattled my faith in Christianity in a way that I would never recover.