Hi everyone. This is just to let regular readers know that I’m enabling comment moderation permanently on the blog. Some of you, if you were subscribed to comments on a recent post, will have had to put up with multiple spam comments from someone who calls himself or herself “DM”. I must admit that these spam comments are so vulgar and incoherent that I’ve never done more than glance at them. But from the brief skims I’ve given them, they seem to be... Read more

It appears that others have received the same e-mail I did. The good news is that mythicists only charge non-mythicists for the chance to win the big bucks. You can win $1,000 with no entry fee if you make the case that Jesus did not exist. So why spend $50 to make a case when there is zero chance you’ll be awarded the prize? Anyone who reads this blog regularly will have seen how mythicists construct their arguments. So I... Read more

As I anticipated another wave of objections to my comparison of mythicists and creationists to come flooding in, I received this e-mail: The Mythicists’ Forum is pleased to award $1,000 to anyone who demonstrates that Jesus actually lived. The winning essay will show that the figure ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ as grandly recorded in the Christian gospels, was a real person and not the pure invention of the evangelists. Further details of the Real Jesus Challenge (also known as the 2011 Historicist Prize), can be found... Read more

From the outset, when I’ve made the analogy between mythicism and various forms of creationism, I have emphasized that this is an analogy. Historical studies does not provide the degree of certainty that the natural sciences do. My point was simply to hopefully get people who call themselves freethinkers to realize that they were accepting views that run counter to the scholarly mainstream in one area while condemning those who do the same in another area, even using some of... Read more

I like the way a colleague of mine expressed himself recently: I don’t really have a fear of heights, or even a fear of falling. I have a fear of landing. Read more

It is interesting how turning points in technology sneak up on us. I used to carry around a thumb drive with files on it – articles and books I was working on, student assignments, as well as any files I might need to shuttle between work and home on a given day. When I began using Dropbox, I still kept the thumb drive with me. It took a while until I began to trust the new system, and a little longer... Read more

Mark Goodacre shared this sock puppet conversation between E. P. Sanders and John Dominic Crossan. I can’t help wondering whether a greater or smaller number of people will watch the sock puppet version compared to how many would watch an actual conversation between Crossan and Sanders. But one thing we can presumably all agree on: sock puppets do not appear on biblioblogs nearly enough. Read more

The LOST conference that was to take place in January is going to be rescheduled and relocated. I could’ve told them that holding a conference on an island that is always moving and must be approached by a very precise trajectory was going to be a problem… Read more

I was going to call this post “John Byron Used To Be My Friend” but it is always dangerous to joke via electronic communication, where sarcasm is harder to detect. But I’m glad to know that John Byron started blogging about a month ago, even if I had to find out about his blog, The Biblical World, from someone else (Michael Bird mentioned John’s blog today). Welcome to the biblioblogosphere, John!   Read more

In a recent discussion on Facebook, I explained once again that I am not convinced that the penal substitionary theory of the atonement is found in the Bible (which is ironic, given that this is the most popular way of interpreting the death of Jesus among so-called “Bible-believing” Christians). But I must admit that, if this view of the death of Jesus is correct, it does have a wonderful implication. On the typical conservative Christian view, Jesus’ death and resurrection surely proves that... Read more