Joel Watts decided to make something I said in an e-mail his “Quote of the Day.” I presume it would be inappropriate to quote myself as a “quote of the day” here, and so I’ll just share the link in case anyone is interested. Read more

The latest piece in the series about this season of Doctor Who is up at Religion Dispatches, with contributions by Gabriel McKee and yours truly. Read more

The next chapter of The Historical Jesus: Five Views is by Luke Timothy Johnson, and its main thrust is to offer a treatment of the Gospels as literature as a better way to approach the historical figure of Jesus. Johnson presents two opposing extremes, those who approach Jesus by faith through prayer and worship as the exalted Lord, and those who investigate Jesus “solely as a dead man of the past” (p.156) rather than as one living and present today. Mediating positions... Read more

Larry Hurtado has posted on his blog about Jimmy Dunn’s most recent book, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?: The New Testament Evidence He has not read the published version yet, but read a pre-publication draft, and shares some thoughts on it. I’d like to offer one comment about Larry’s blog post: There does indeed appear to be some evidence for Christians having worshiped sacrificially in earliest Christianity. In the Book of Acts, we have reference to the early Christians gathering in the... Read more

Richard Hall shared a link to this cartoon by Dave Walker about what really goes on in church and Sunday school: And on a more somber note, David Hayward compares ancient and modern perspectives on what happens to you when you lose your faith: Read more

You can now subscribe to Exploring Our Matrix for Kindle for the low price of $1.99. I don’t know how many readers have Kindles and will find this advantageous, but if you read this blog on that device, do let me know how you find it! Read more

I am delighted to share the news that Larry Hurtado has a blog. Most readers will be familiar with this name, but if you aren’t, Larry W. Hurtado is Professor of New Testament Language, Literature & Theology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. I am sure that all the Biblical scholars and readers interested in Biblical studies will want to bookmark it and add it to their feed reader if they use one. It is a new blog, and... Read more

Neil Godfrey has a post in which he once again makes fun of my name (at least more creatively than last time), but also provides an opportunity for himself and his commenters to illustrate once more how mythicism and creationism are similar. He questioned my suggestion that, whereas in a US court of law “hearsay” (i.e. a report from one person which offers an account of what another person said who is not testifying in person in the court) is... Read more

Talk about crossover – here’s the music from Super Mario Bros. played on the violin! http://d.yimg.com/static.video.yahoo.com/yep/YV_YEP.swf?ver=2.2.46Super Mario On The Violin (Live) @ Yahoo! Video Read more

Ancient World On-Line shared three Romanian archaeology journals, and given my Romanian connections and interests, I thought I should share them. Peuce (Museum of the Danube Delta)Revista Pontica (Constanţa Museum of National History and Archaeology)Analele Banatului (Banat Museum, Timişoara) Read more