Crowd Sourced Questions: Bible

We wanted to know what questions people are really asking.  For about two months, we asked our people to turn in their own questions and to poll their friends.  I even put my writing class students to work on this through homework assignments.  This Sunday, we'll try to answer as many questions as possible in a rapid-fire two minute answer format.  

Yesterday, I posted the first category of questions: Questions about Theology.

Here is the second category: Questions about the Bible. 

Feel free to offer up your own answers or questions in the comment section.  I'll try to post the audio of our Q and A time after we do it.  But for now, it may be helpful just to take a little refresher course on what questions people are actually asking - not just what questions do we think others should ask.

What is the mark of the beast?

What did they do with all that meat sacrificed at the temple?

What is a Nazirite, and how is it related to a Nazarene?

How was the Bible formed?  What about the Gnostic gospels?

Why is the God of the OT so different from the God of the NT?

Eschatology: Rapture or Restoration?

    We humans have a love-hate relationship with eschatology.  Eschatology is the study of the end.  What will happen at the end of the world?  What comes next? 
    On one hand, we seem to be irrevocably drawn to the apocalyptic, end-of-the-world stuff, especially in movies.  apocalypticmovies.com lists 61 apocalyptic movies since the year 2000.  In his article, “It’s the End of the World, and We Love It,” Mark Moring says, “We are divinely wired to wonder what comes next.”1
    Every now and then, this deep hunger for knowing the future leads people to make some outrageous claims.  Just a few months ago, an 89 year old American radio guy named Harold Camping hosted a huge campaign - with public billboards, radio slots, news footage, and mobile bus advertisements - saying Jesus was coming back at exactly 6 p.m. on May 21, 2011.  Obviously, that didn’t happen.
    That kind of error-based fear-building has given many people a distaste for eschatology.  Many of us would rather just put our heads down and live today, one day at a time.  Some folks just want to forget the future.
    But eschatology is still really important.  It’s the closing chapter of our human story.  In fact, nearly all of the New Testament - and really the whole Bible - is forward looking.  From the Biblical perspective, the future is holding our hand and pulling us into its reality.  
    The problem with understanding the future is that it isn’t here yet.  As much as the Bible is forward-leaning, as much as Christianity views us as being pulled into the future, there aren’t many details. 
   
    Christians are deeply committed to the future, though.  We have a few absolute beliefs about the future.  ...

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