I have a student who is hoping to do summer research on the subject of the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus, with particular focus on (1) the Jewish background of the concept, and (2) reconstructing as closely as possible the earliest form of kingdom parables with a high probability of authenticity. This is a fascinating topic in its own right, as well as being a central issue in the divide between those who view Jesus as an... Read more

I was going to make this a “quote of the day” post, but then found that more than one blogger had tackled this subject. Scot McKnight offers a response to a letter about doubt. He has many wise things to say, such as the following: you will never go back to where you were and you will never be the same again and you will never get back to where things were. Instead, this season of doubt, which for some... Read more

JohnDave Medina has been reading my first book, John’s Apologetic Christology and shares some thoughts and quotes. . Read more

It is rather dismaying to find one of my local representatives, Rep. Vanessa Summers, being harrassed and maligned by other Christians because she wants to ensure that even religiously-affiliated child care centers are held to the same basic standards of best practices as all other such institutions. The proposed legislation is available online, and I for one can’t figure out why anyone would oppose it, unless they would put the inconvenience of having to meet these minimal standards above the welfare of children... Read more

Today the story of Elisha and the she-bears (2 Kings 2:23-25) came up in Sunday school class. Some people there hadn’t encountered the story before. It led to an interesting discussion about the fact that some use the rhetoric of “believing the whole Bible” even when they aren’t sure what it would mean to “believe in” such stories, or what to do with them. Later I found myself wondering why a God with the power to send bears to maul mockers... Read more

A commenter on my recent post about the Documentary Hypothesis suggested a possible analogy to the activity of the redactor of the Pentateuch, namely Tatian’s Diatessaron, the first attempt to create a single life of Jesus from the four Gospels. I wonder whether the scenario of creating a single narrative from multiple sources, however unusual some aspects of it may seem in the context of typical ancient composition, is nevertheless a persistent recurrent phenomenon distinctive of the Biblical tradition, which perhaps more... Read more

I heard Joshua Bell perform this piece as an encore on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS last night, and was reminded of hearing the amazing virtuoso Rachel Barton Pine perform the piece live. A quick search on YouTube turned up this recording of her performing the same piece, Henri Vieuxtemps’ Souvenir d’Amérique, op.17. If you don’t know it, you’ll recognize the sterotypically American tune it is based on, but I won’t spoil the surprise/fun for you. Enjoy! Read more

Deirdre Good shared a link to an article about memory research, and mentions its relevance to (among other things) the ending of Mark’s Gospel. Despite my avid interest in that subject, the first thing that came to my mind was the subject of a class I taught today: the Documentary Hypothesis. On the one hand, everything we know about the production of ancient texts makes me resist the Documentary Hypothesis – the idea of an author copying a few lines from here... Read more

I think I just had an “a-ha” moment regarding LOST – and I’m wondering whether I’ve had a flash of insight, a flash of misunderstanding, or am just noticing what is obvious to everyone. We’ve been so focused on the “resurrection” of John Locke this past season, that most fans have failed to connect this with the earlier “resurrection” of Christian Shephard. That the two are parallel or related has been indicated clearly: indeed, taking Locke back wearing Christian’s shoes... Read more

None other than Damon Lindelof shared this on Twitter with the simple comment “Wow”: In other LOST tweeting, I came across a speculative timeline trying to connect the flashes (and accompanying shifts in time) from this past season with other things that happened on the show. Read more