A recent post about the Euthyphro dilemma has generated quite a bit of discussion, and has left me wondering about a particular aspect of this philosophical puzzle. It is quite common for Christians to argue that God is the only possible basis for objective morality. That seems, however, to be the opposite of Plato’s assumption in writing the dialogue, since there the issue of divine subjectivity on the part of multiple disagreeing deities arises. I wonder if in many contemporary... Read more

HT to James K. A. Smith for sharing this gem from The New Yorker: Read more

The Seventh Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament will be held in Birmingham from 28-31 March 2011. The theme is “Early Christian Writers and the Text of the New Testament.” And there’s a Call for Papers for a conference on Biblical Literacy and the Curriculum to be held at the University of Sheffield, 25-28 May 2011. HT NT Blog, JW/ZR and ETC. Read more

Unfortunately it seems that David Opderbeck’s e-mail account has been hacked and used to send a scam message to those in his address book. Either that or he really is in trouble and just happened to use the exact same words in his plea for help that have been used in scam messages in the past. Here’s the text of the message: I’m writing this with tears in my eyes. I came down here to London, United Kingdom for a... Read more

Having discussed the Euthyphro dilemma in class recently, I thought it appropriate to share this opportunity to discuss the Euthyphro dilemma with God at the web site Philosophy Experiments (HT 3quarksdaily). Read more

I thought I should get 2010 Blog Action Day started by sharing a few posts related to this year’s theme of water: At CNN’s Belief Blog, a post emphasizing why Christians should care about the issue of clean water.At the New York Times, an article about drought and farmland turning into desert in Syria.At 3quarksdaily, an article about water and flooding in Pakistan. Read more

Joel Watts has accused me of heresy. I know what you’re thinking: “This is news?!” Of course I’m a heretic. But I must dispute the reason for the accusation. It is mere sleight of hand. He suggests that I described 1996 New Living Translation of the Bible as boring. In fact, I described its title as boring, and I stand by that. The title under which this particular edition was published was The Book. Yawn. The title is about as... Read more

Steve Caruso shared the big news that the latest version of Unicode includes Mandaic characters! Read more

Doug Mangum has begun a contest to see who can find the most boring book title. I am not sure if I’ve thought of the best contender yet, but at the moment I’m inclined to go with this one: The Book. But I may yet come up with something better still, and so had better wait until I check whether we can enter more than once. Jim Getz, Joel Watts, and others have already joined in on their own blogs, while Jim Spinti has... Read more

A recent post on Vridar illustrates one of the many problems with mythicism. One of the axioms of historical study (which, when ignored, leaves one doing apologetics instead) is that sources should be treated fairly. Accepting claims to the miraculous when found in the Bible while rejecting them when found elsewhere is not historical scholarship. And neither is ridiculing those who find the evidence for the historical figure of Jesus as idiots, while treating those who view Socrates as a... Read more