Religion and Spiritual Movements

Strategies, Practices, and Sociopolitical Impacts By Andrea McGurran Published: October 21, 2025 Warfare in the Ancient Levant (Andrea McGurran/2025) The ancient Levant, encompassing modern-day Israe l , Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of Turkey, was a region of immense historical significance—a crossroads of civilizations, trade routes, and cultures. Warfare in this region was shaped by its geography, political landscape, and the cultural interplay among its inhabitants. F

By Andrea McGurran Published 30 January 2026 "A street in Shivta (Sobota) in the Negev desert, Israel." (Ester Inbar/2005) SHIVTA, ISRAEL — In August 2026, archaeologists announced the discovery of a Byzantine-era church near the ancient city of Shivta in the heart of the Negev Desert. Dating back to the 5th century CE, this remarkable find features well-preserved frescoes and inscriptions in Greek and Syriac, offering an extraordinary glimpse into the spread of Christianity

By Andrea McGurran Canada, 24 August 2026 © Andrea McGurran. All rights reserved. The phrase “Abrahamic religions” sounds tidy. It places Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in one family portrait, with Abraham at the centre and monotheism as the shared inheritance. It is useful shorthand for historians. It is also the source of a serious theological dispute. For many Jews, Christians, Messianic Jews, and other Messianic believers, Islam’s claim to worship the God of Abraham i

By Andrea McGurran Canada, 24 August 2026 © 2026 Andrea McGurran. All rights reserved. A strange thing happens when an ancient flood story meets a modern genetic chart. The old questions do not disappear. They change shape. Genesis speaks of waters rising, an ark, a remnant, a covenant, a rainbow and a world beginning again. Geneticists speak of haplogroups, coalescence, effective population size and bottlenecks. These languages sound far apart. One belongs to scripture, li

By Andrea McGurran Canada Published 24 August 2026 © 2026 Andrea McGurran. All rights reserved. A child can now learn the name of Thor from a superhero film before hearing it in a classroom as a Norse deity. A teenager may know Nike as a shoe before knowing Nike was the Greek goddess of victory. A commuter may pass the Starbucks siren every morning without thinking of the older world of sea spirits, seduction and myth. None of this is accidental. Pagan mythology has become

By Andrea McGurran Canada Published 24 August 2026 A cracked jar, a broken stone inscription, a difference between two ancient manuscripts: these are the kinds of fragments that can change how readers understand the Bible. Historical biblical studies begins with a simple premise. The Bible is sacred Scripture for many communities, and it is also a collection of ancient texts written, copied, translated, debated, and preserved across centuries. To study it historically is no

By Andrea McGurran Canada Published 24 August 2026 © 2026 Andrea McGurran. All rights reserved. The Bible is not one book in one room. It is a library carried across deserts, monasteries, yeshivot, churches, universities, family tables and lecture halls. Its manuscripts have survived conquest, exile, translation, commentary and argument. Its words have shaped law, poetry, worship, politics and ethics across much of the world. That is why biblical studies remain so conteste

By Andrea McGurran | Canada | 24 August 2026 Copyright © 2026 Andrea McGurran. All rights reserved. Jerusalem did not become sacred all at once. It rose by layers: a hilltop settlement, a royal capital, a temple city, a place of siege and return, and, in biblical memory, the meeting point of heaven and earth. Its biblical story begins before Israel’s kings and continues through conquest, worship, reform, exile, and rebuilding. The city’s power comes partly from geography. It