This is a repost of a blog post from 2007, which is apparently so long ago that it is hard to find even if you specifically search for it by its title. So I’m reposting it, since someone asked me this question again recently… One criticism I have of Bertrand Russell’s famous essay, “Why I Am Not A Christian,” is that it offers a no more sophisticated or academic a treatment of stories in the New Testament than fundamentalists would.... Read more

Views on ancient narratives and miracles change. From the perspective of modern readers, the fact that Sarah conceived when she was old is interesting but does not seem miraculous. What seems like a miracle to modern readers is Sarah thinking that her husband sleeping with another woman was a good idea! (Tonight I took over our church’s Wednesday night Bible study on short notice. They’ve been studying Galatians, and were up to Paul’s figurative interpretation of Genesis comparing Hagar and... Read more

Sabio Lantz continues his series on The Burial of Jesus, this time comparing accounts of the death of Jesus and the Buddha.Scotteriology continues a series on whether higher criticism destroys the Bible.Cryptotheology shares a video featuring Ian Paul of St. John’s College Nottingham explaining apocalyptic literature.Loren Rosson continues the discussion of faith in/of Christ in the Apostolic Fathers.Richard Fellows looks at Barnabas and Paul (not vice versa).Timo Paananen seems to have the “inside story” about Morton Smith’s bermuda shorts!BAR has an article... Read more

Jeremy at Hacking Christianity has two posts on doubt, one related to the On Faith series about clergy doubt I mentioned yesterday, the other about the character Richard Alpert on LOST. And here’s some music to listen to while you ponder this topic:http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/common/swf/wgv_st_player.swf Read more

The Washington Post’s “On Faith” section today has multiple voices and perspectives on a topic that doesn’t get discussed directly often enough: What ought clergy to do who no longer hold to the tenets of their denomination? (Assuming their denomination has doctrinal tenets, of course!) Read more

Now that’s more like it. Tonight’s episode provided answers, real answers, satisfying answers. Well, sort of.  OK, not really, but it is still heading in a satisfying direction. [SPOILER ALERT] As we learned at the end of the last episode, Charles Widmore has returned to the island by submarine. In today’s episode, we learned that the submarine has a door with padlocks – what could be inside, we’re supposed to wonder. Widmore’s team was setting up a sonic fence, and... Read more

I went ahead and ordered Jimmy Dunn’s latest book, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?, from the UK, rather than wait several more months for its release in the US. I’ll say more about it once it arrives! Read more

On the NASCAS list-serv today there was an e-mail about the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, which is yet another fantastic attempt to preserve, digitize and make available a wide range of manuscripts of interest to scholars in a wide range of fields. Read more

Rafael has shared some thoughts on orality, redaction criticism and Kelber’s notion of “equiprimordiality” on his blog Verily Verily. Also of interest is the web site The Samaritan Update, which includes information about the Samaritans both in the present day and historically. Read more

I think I may have an idea about where LOST is going. In the orientation video for the Orchid Station, Dr. Pierre Chang demonstrated the possibility of bringing a white rabbit through time, with the result that there were two copies of the rabbit – the present one and one from the past or future – both now in the same time. He also seemed to consider it extremely important that they be kept separate. In the subsequent time-travelling of the characters,... Read more