Latest articles byDr. Zachary Porcu
Abdiel: Milton's Angel who Scorned the Devil - By a PhD
The name “Abdiel” appears in the Bible only one time, in 1 Chronicles 5:15: “Ahi the son of Abdiel, the son of Guni, was chief of their father’s house” (NJKV). In this passage, Abdiel appears as someone’s father in a genealogy,...
Pentagram vs Star of David: Symbolism Historical and Modern
While modern people tend to associate the pentagram with the devil, satanism, or magic in general, it’s important to realize that the pentagram is a perennial symbol that’s been used in huge range of cultural contexts for all o...
Sosthenes of The Seventy Disciples - by a Christian PhD
Sosthenes is mentioned a couple times in the New Testament. He appears in the opening verse of first Corinthians as part of St. Paul’s greeting, where he calls Sosthenes “our brother”: “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Ch...
What is the longest book in the Bible? And the shortest?
Questions about which book of the Bible is the longest or the shortest are a little misleading because the answers depend entirely how you count. The first issue is that there isn’t a single canon of scripture. The older canon ...
Malchus: The Roman Soldier in the Garden of Gethsemane
The short answer: In the Bible, Malchus is the servant of the high priest whom St. Peter struck with a sword when the Jews came to arrest Jesus. He is mentioned in only one Gospel account and is not considered a saint in any tr...
Emperor, Liberator: Who was Cyrus in the Bible?
To understand the significance of Cyrus the Great, we need a little bit of context for the history of the ancient Israelites. If you know your Old Testament history, you know that there were two important time periods in the hi...
"It is well with my soul": Bible verse or hymn lyric?
The phrase “it is well with my soul” does not appear in the Bible as an exact quote. It was penned by a nineteenth-century Protestant named Horatio G. Spafford. The sentiment is not entirely un-Biblical, however, as you could a...
The Symbolism of Birds in the Bible
As a general category, birds don’t symbolize any particular thing in the Bible, but different species are used for a variety of different types of symbolism. Owls and other birds of prey are often used to represent desolation. ...