J-M's History Corner

If you're a superhero fan (like myself), you've undoubtedly heard of the multiverse . It's basically the belief that there are multiple parallel universes that may or may not be like our own, and is regularly employed in comic books (especially superhero ones - such as Marvel and DC). But could it be real? A popular opinion spread by physicists in recent years has been that it is real.  That ours is just one of potentially innumerable realities. However, they have yet to prove it.  The most they can offer is circumstantial evidence that just doesn't sell it for me - usually based on the assumption that the Big Bang is true (it's not), or evidence that the universe is larger than we've observed (what's new?); some even try to use it as a cop-out to get rid of God.  Yes, that's right: they think that if there are multiple parallel realities of differing planes of existence, effectively separated by a spiritual barrier, it will prove there is no God/we ...

The canon of Scripture is a settled issue, isn’t it? You’ve got your 66 books total, 39 in the Old Testament (24 by the Jewish counting) and 27 in the New Testament. However, when you do the research, things are not so simple. There are many “other” books claiming to be Scripture, a number of them accepted by various denominations and/or included in various Bibles over the years. Are they Scripture? Or just heretical additions? Previous installments in this series: Part 1: The Apocrypha Part 2: Enoch and Jubilees Part 3: Jasher Part 4: The Other Books of Baruch Part 5: The Other Books of Enoch Part 6: The Lost Book of Ezekiel Part 7: The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (What?  I'm trying to be as thorough as possible!) Now, after a 4 month break, I'm covering the Book of Mormon , published by Joseph Smith (founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) in the 1800s, who claimed to have translated it from golden tablets shown him by a dead man-turne...