Someone asked the question on Reddit of whether the New Testament Gospels were anonymous. Here is the answer I provided. My own view is that they were anonymous in the same way that most ancient works were originally and in most copies. In Judaism the biblical texts were known by their first words and not separate titles. In antiquity in general authorship circulated as paratextual information rather than as something written within the text. The custom of listing the author... Read more
I read an article that sounded like more of the hype that has surrounded AI from the outset, claiming that AGI is just around the corner. AGI, as a reminder, stands for Artificial General Intelligence. It claimed that AI was already demonstrating superior skill to humans on certain metrics. Skeptical, I looked for details, and one of them was genuinely striking. It involves an LLM solving riddles, which would indeed seem to involve reasoning. If you have read my past... Read more
I think the best way for me to help my fellow human beings understand what LLMs are and do, and what they are not and cannot be, is to engage in interaction with them in ways that hopefully make this clear. It is crucial to not just listen to what it says as though it is a rational human conversation partner, but what it is doing and how it functions. In the process, I alluded or referred to biblical texts... Read more
It is urgent that people across all fields and disciplines respond to the appearance of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the chatbot interfaces with which humans can interact with them, but before there can be an appropriate response to LLMs, understanding LLMs must happen first. There is instead widespread misunderstanding, and this article seeks to address that. The most famous LLM is of course ChatGPT, and I have written about it more than once. Lately I have been experimenting with... Read more
Two new reviews have appeared online about Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist. Dave Courtney writes about my book: Every once in a while I come across a book that I finish, set down, and immediately want to discuss with everyone and anyone. This is one such book, Only to find that it’s near impossible to find someone else who has read it. More people need to read this. While I had points of disagreement, it is inspired, fascinating,... Read more
Apparently today is National Science Fiction Day. While also writing an article about the Bible and AI, I tested out the latest version of ChatGPT available at the time (ChatGPT4o, with the letter ‘o’ abbreviating omni) as well as the specific customized version called Scholar GPT, to see what they can do and how I need to adjust my assignments in light of improvements. What better test than to ask Scholar GPT to compare the two fictional religions that feature... Read more
Have you been waiting for me to list the top 10 ReligionProf posts of 2024? Your wait is over. As has been typical in past years, I will focus on which posts were the most read this year, including posts written earlier, while also giving an indication of what else would make the list if it were limited to posts written this year. Can you guess which posts were the most popular before reading further? The #10 most popular post... Read more
This post about the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special “Joy to the World” will contain spoilers, because this is an episode that a religious studies professor who writes about Doctor Who has to comment on, and there’s no way to do so without discussing details, including the ending. The episode “Joy to the World” doesn’t just have the vague holiday connection that Christmas episodes tend to. The Doctor finds himself at the Time Hotel, which allows people to visit Christmas... Read more
Prophetic name tags? Was it curiosity about what this post could possibly be about that led you to click and read it? If so, I trust you won’t be disappointed. There will be a mix of humor and genuine insight into an important story in the New Testament. And music too! (Feel free to check out the music first via this link and get it playing while you read.) When my Sunday school class got up to the story of... Read more
The combined annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego ( #sblaar24 ) was amazing. Upon arrival I had a chance to reconnect with old friends who were only there that first day before, and to record a short video (because I was running late) with Jacob Berman for his History Valley YouTube channel. The first full day of the conference began with a book review panel about John of History,... Read more
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