Malcolm Smith

2025 is likely to be remembered as a strong year for global equity investors. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, geopolitical uncertainty and renewed trade tensions all kept investors on their toes throughout the year. Yet despite all the... See more

St. Joseph is nowhere mentioned during Jesus' ministry, least of all in places where you would expect it, so it is normally assumed that he had already passed away by then. Nevertheless, complications would have arisen if he had died while Jesus was still... See more

In Part 1 we looked at what the Bible says, or doesn't say, about the purported perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now we shall examine the earliest Christian writings to see whether they can provide any evidence for the doctrine. The first... See more

You will often hear it said that Jesus' brothers and sisters were the children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. After all, their attitude towards Jesus resembles the resentment of older children over the success of the baby of the family. I suppose young... See more

St. Jerome is famous as the scholar who produced the Vulgate, the standard Latin translation of the Bible. As such, his other writings became hugely influential. Jerome was a monk particularly obsessed with ascetism: the denial of the pleasures of the fle... See more