Welcome to Westar Institute
Westar Institute is a non-profit, public-benefit research and educational organization that is dedicated to fostering and communicating the results of cutting-edge scholarship on the history and evolution of the Christian tradition, thereby raising the level of public discourse about questions that matter in society and culture.
How the Death of Jesus Was Remembered
This historical primer on the death of Jesus examines the evidence of Jesus’ crucifixion, explains how crucifixion worked in the Roman Empire, and explores how and why it was remembered by followers of Jesus.
When Charles Darwin's theory of evolution first gained popularity, one criticism was that the natural process he described took time, lots of time. In the 1700's Georges-Louis Leclerc estimated the earth was 75,000 years old. This was not enough time for evolution to produce all the life forms on our planet.
Ancient apocalyptic, both in scrolls and imaginative strategy, emerges out of social upheaval. When pressed to explain social change, the ancient mind was often at a loss. Only a dramatic scenario could account for the loss of one’s social world or the advent of a new one. Apocalyptic writing was a creative response to being thrown into the vortex of life. In the four following articles the authors demonstrate how the ancients could accommodate and even participate in the changed conditions of living [...]
The popular assumption is that the faith and teaching of the church are rooted in the faith and teaching of Jesus. This idea, however, proves completely unfounded when one checks the data. The truth is that there is a dichotomy between Jesus and the church. While the church may name Jesus as its founder, what it preaches and what Jesus had to say are very different. According to Günther Bornkamm, a student of Rudolf Bultmann, an ugly gap exists between Jesus of Nazareth and the church [...]