About Bible Lens
Have you ever sat in a pew — or a lecture hall — with a question you were afraid to ask?
Maybe it was about Genesis and dinosaurs. Maybe it was about a doctrine that didn’t quite add up. Maybe it was a scientific claim that seemed to contradict something you’d observed.
Most of us learned early: some questions aren’t welcome. In religious spaces, asking the wrong thing can get you labeled a doubter — or worse. In academic spaces, questioning the consensus can get you dismissed as uninformed.
So we learn to go along to get along. And somewhere along the way, many of us lost something — either our faith, our intellectual honesty, or both.
Bible Lens exists for the people who refused to stop asking.
We believe the Bible can handle your hardest questions — and so can you. We bring ancient texts into focus using archaeology, history, and the worldview of the original audiences. Not to tell you what to think, but to give you the tools to think for yourself.
No gatekeepers. No fear of expulsion. Just ancient wisdom, examined honestly.
About the Lens
Every reader brings a framework to the text. Here’s ours — stated plainly.
Unitarian Monotheism
Through this lens, the Shema — “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one” — means exactly what it says. God is one person: the Father. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, a fully human being chosen and anointed by God.
This is a minority position in contemporary Christianity, but it was the mainstream reading of Jewish monotheism in the first century. What the original audience would have understood when Jesus said “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) is straightforward: the one who sends is greater than the one who is sent.
Key texts we return to often: John 17:3 (“the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”), 1 Corinthians 8:6 (“one God, the Father... and one Lord, Jesus Christ”), and the Shema itself (Deuteronomy 6:4).
We acknowledge this challenges traditional Trinitarian theology. We hold this view because we believe it best reflects the historical, textual evidence — not to dismiss those who read differently.
Partial Preterism
Here’s where it gets interesting: most of Matthew 24 and large portions of Revelation were not predictions about our future — they were predictions about the first century. And they came true in 70 AD when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the temple.
When Jesus said “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matthew 24:34), the most natural reading is that he meant the generation he was speaking to. The “end of the age” he described was the end of the Old Covenant era — not the end of the physical world.
This view is called partial preterism. It doesn’t deny a future return of Christ, but it takes seriously the plain time-language of the New Testament: “soon,” “near,” and “quickly” meant what they say.
This is another minority view, held by a significant number of scholars and theologians across history. We present it as historically-grounded, not as the only valid reading.
Historical-Critical Method
We read the Bible the way you’d read any ancient document: asking first what it meant to the people who wrote it and first received it. What did a first-century Jew understand by “the kingdom of God”? What did an ancient Israelite hear in the Genesis creation narrative?
Through this lens, Genesis 1 isn’t a scientific account competing with modern cosmology — it’s a cosmic temple dedication narrative structured around the seven-day pattern of ancient Near Eastern literature. Understanding that doesn’t diminish the text; it illuminates it.
We draw on archaeology, ancient Near Eastern texts, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the work of historians and biblical scholars who have devoted careers to understanding this world. We try to acknowledge our sources and be honest when we’re presenting contested interpretations.
What This Means in Practice
When you read commentary in Bible Lens, it will reflect this framework. Our analysis of Genesis will emphasize ancient cosmological context over modern scientific debates. Our reading of Matthew 24 will highlight the 70 AD fulfillment. When the identity of Jesus comes up, the AI will present a unitarian perspective grounded in the historical text.
Our goal is not to tell you what to believe. It’s to give you a coherent, historically-grounded alternative to the readings you may have grown up with — and to let you decide.
If you read something that surprises you, good. That’s the point. Push back, ask follow-up questions, bring your own reading. The text is rich enough to hold the conversation.
Ancient wisdom, modern clarity. That’s what we’re after.