Commenter Scott Gray left a detailed comment on a recent post, which I thought deserved to be highlighted in a post of its own. The original post asked whether it is appropriate to “do violence to” violent texts. Scott explored some of the different types of “peace” and “warfare” that one might engage in with respect to texts: a few thoughts on textual violence: ‘hot peace’ baseline: interactive collaboration; mutual prosperity; no mistrust or suspicion; absence of violence or intimidation:... Read more

The title of this post comes from tonight’s episode of FlashForward, which has begun to delve further into the religious questions that people would inevitably ask after a major crisis – even one that didn’t involve unexplained visions of the future. The Episcopal priest in the episode fits a familiar stereotype (think Ned Flanders’ attempt to find solace from his minister in the Simpsons episode “Hurricane Neddy”). In one sense, the scenario has a certain plausibility to it. After all,... Read more

I’m now in a training session to learn to use Umbraco, a content-management system we’ll be using at Butler for web pages. As my department’s webmaster, I am responsible for managing our web content. It sounds like a relatively easy-to-use yet powerful way of maintaining web content, and since I’m sitting here waiting for them to register latecomers, I thought I’d mention it! Read more

Mark Goodacre has posted a response to my recent post about his book The Case Against Q. While there are some things that we don’t see eye to eye on (and that may change in the future, of course), there are certain key methodological concerns that we do agree on, and this combination of agreement and disagreement makes for interesting conversation and fruitful dialogue. So do go over to Mark’s NT Blog and join in the conversation! Read more

I came across this and thought I’d share it. Even those who consider themselves conservative find the Conservative Bible Project problematic in more ways than one. Here’s what the blog “Beside The Point” had to say, which includes some humorous suggestions on how the Bible might be made more conservative – and more American: Okay, sometimes I’ve jumped a little too quickly on a story, but I can’t find any source yet that thinks this is parody. Apparently, Andy Schafly,... Read more

I was just reminded about a conference that I think I had heard about at some point but which dropped off my radar. The University of Notre Dame (under the auspices of their Reilly Center for Science, Technology and Values and their Center for Continuing Education) will be holding a conference at the very beginning of November entitled “Darwin in the 21st Century“. The program includes Francisco Ayala, Ken Miller, Simon Conway Morris and many others. It sounds interesting, and... Read more

I just finished reading Mark Goodacre’s book The Case Against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and Synoptic Problem. I now see why he has sometimes found it so frustrating talking to people like me who take Q for granted and repeat common claims that he’s sought to investigate in his book, and often found to wanting – or at best, less clear-cut than is often assumed. On the one hand, even after reading the book I still find it unlikely... Read more

“I believe that there is no such thing as a monotheism. No religion in existence lacks any nondivine or demonic entities other than the central or highest deity. If the saints and angels and demons of modern Catholicism or any other flavour of Christianity were represented in Greek mythology, we’d call them gods…The reason why no religion is monotheistic, not even Islam (djinn, remember, and angels), is that we have a disposition towards dramatic narratives, and a god with no... Read more

Online College Tips has posted a list of the 100 best blogs by professors, ranging a wide range of topics and disciplines. HT one of the best. Read more

In the comments on a recent post, someone mentioned that a particular interpretation of the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac “does violence to the text.” Given that the text itself features the use of violence, and those who read violent texts like these are sometimes led to engage in acts of violence themselves, I found myself wondering whether some sort of “just war” theory might apply to Biblical interpretation. To put it bluntly, is it appropriate/moral to treat violent... Read more