Sources & method

How we decide what earns a place on this site, how we mark how sure we are, and what stands behind each explanation.

Gospel Decoded recovers what the Bible's first hearers understood instantly: the idioms, customs, wordplay, and cultural references a modern reader slides past. That only has value if it is trustworthy. So every entry has to clear a bar, and where a reading is debated we say so plainly rather than dress a guess up as a fact.

How we decide what goes in

Every explanation has to clear the same few tests before it earns a place:

It has to rest on something real. Each entry stands on a fact we can point to: what a word actually meant, a custom we have evidence for, a detail from history or archaeology. A clever guess doesn't make the cut.
Bigger claims need more behind them. The more weight an explanation carries, the more backing we want before we state it as plain fact.
One source isn't proof. A single commentary making a claim is a place to start, not a reason to believe it. Either other scholars back it up, or we tell you it's that one tradition's view.
"Interesting" isn't a reason. That a detail is a fun aside, or simply gives us more to say, doesn't earn it a spot.
When we're not sure, we say so. If the evidence is thin, we either leave it out or keep it and mark plainly how debated it is.

How sure is it? The three tiers

Every entry carries one of three confidence marks, so you always know what kind of claim you are reading:

Settled — uncontested background

Lexical facts and well-documented customs that scholars across traditions take for granted. The kind of thing you would find in any standard reference work.

Well-supported — strong scholarly backing

The majority scholarly reading, with real evidence behind it, though not beyond discussion.

Interpretation — compelling but debated

A genuinely contested reading. We include it only when it is attributed ("a rabbinic tradition reads…," "some scholars argue…") and never phrased as settled fact. Where the experts are split, we lay out the options rather than pick a winner.

What stands behind the entries

The explanations draw on the standard scholarly reference works for language, culture, and translation:

Lexicons (word meaning): BDAG (Greek) and HALOT (Hebrew), the Louw-Nida semantic-domain lexicon, and the public-domain Strong's, Thayer's, and Gesenius'.
Cultural & historical background: The IVP Bible Background Commentary (Craig Keener for the New Testament, John Walton and colleagues for the Old), and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
Translators' notes: The NET Bible translators' notes, which show the wording decisions and alternatives behind the English.
The biblical text: Scripture is quoted from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), in the public domain. Every quotation on the site is checked against it.

What this site is not

It is a reading companion, not a commentary or a devotional. It explains the cultural and linguistic layer of a phrase and then gets out of the way; it does not tell you what to conclude. When a phrase has a well-known theological or later-tradition reading layered on top, we distinguish that from what the first hearer would simply have understood.

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