Two more blog entries related to religion and sci-fi came to my attention today. First, prophetsandpopstars reviewed The Gospel According to Lost. Second, The Onion applied the movie Enemy Mine to the Israel-Palestine conflict.. Read more

I am grateful to Kris Komarnitsky for sending me a copy of his book Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box?  For some, the title may seem appealing, while to others it may be disturbing, but when it comes to historical study, the simple fact is that there is no way for a historian not to doubt the resurrection – or to put it more precisely, a historian cannot but raise questions about the historical factuality of the... Read more

Markus Cromhout has posted an entire draft of a conference paper on resurrection in Paul, and is asking for feedback. I’ve only skimmed it but it clearly offers some interesting perspectives, in particular on whether the concept of resurrection is one that is culture-bound rather than universal. Torrey Seland shared a link to a document by Larry Hurtado about Philo and early Christianity. Jonathan Robinson makes observations about Genesis 2-3. Ruth Gledhill shares a news clip about the Bible on Xbox. Also... Read more

I just became aware of a new biblioblog by a most unusual manner. Rather than learning of the blog and then getting introduced to the blogger behind it, this time the process was the reverse! James Leonard’s blog Treasures Old and New features a series of posts related to Christology, monotheism and divine identity, as well as textual criticism and other subjects squarely within the domain of biblioblogging. Read more

Mike Kok has elaborated some thoughts (which began in a comment over here on Exploring Our Matrix a couple of months ago) about the development of Christology. He offers a threefold categorization of scholarly views. Do take a look and join in the conversation – and if you can figure out which category I best fit into, let me know! 🙂 Read more

While Christianity Today does a good job of reporting on the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon, Fox news offers viewers no understanding of the nature of the find, the uncertainty about how the fragmentary text should be translated, or anything else that might be called accurate, nuanced reporting: http://www.comcast.net/ve/1.0/1389377739/555/457/ Having said that, I’d be delighted if viewers who gravitate to Fox’s conservative reporting take to heart the message of Galil’s reconstruction, which calls for defending the poor and the stranger. Read more

“Myth is never plausible narrative. It asks for another kind of assent. To anyone for whom it does not strike an important equipose, it seems absurd. The myth of the Fall makes it possible to think of humankind and the world as at the same time intrinsically good and intrinsically evil. Those to whom this vision is not compelling grumble about the apple and the snake.” — Marilynne Robinson, “Hearing Silence: Western Myth Reconsidered” in The True Subject: Writers on... Read more

The title of this post is a misleading mash-up – what I want to draw attention to is a video posted at The Naked Bible which suggests that the idea of “two powers” or “two Yahwehs” can be traced back to within Scripture itself. Not everyone will relate to the speaker’s starting point (which relates this material to apologetics and evangelism), but all are likely to find the talk interesting, as it surveys an impressively wide range of material from... Read more

The next Biblical Studies Carnival will be at Abnormal Interests, and should thus be abnormally interesting. Star submitting your posts soon! Read more

There’s an article that just appeared over at IO9 about the religions invented for various science fiction stories. Read more