I received a request to post something on prooftexting, and I’m not sure I have much to add beyond what has already been said in the recent post from Jeremy Smith arguing against memorizing verses from the Bible (in turn inspired by a post by Matt Cleaver). The principle is well known: “A text taken out of context becomes a pretext.” But few of us think that we are guilty of doing that when we quote a verse – we... Read more

A blog I read shared a cartoon from a series called The Far Left Side, and I found several related to religion, including this one: this one: this one: and this one: There are even more that relate to health care and insurance. There are some that are offensive (probably to just about anyone and everyone who might read them), but there are enough that are amusing and of potential use for educators talking about topics in religion, that I... Read more

Henry Ian Cusick (who has played the role of Jesus but is probably best known for his role as Desmond Hume on LOST) will be taking on the role of Charles Darwin for the October 6th episode of NOVA entitled Darwin’s Darkest Hour, about Darwin’s struggles over whether to publish his ideas and the evolution (pun intended) of his views on religion as well as biology, as well as his interactions with his wife and her own faith. The press... Read more

A student drew to my attention that a priest from here in Indianapolis, who gained the nickname “Father Neo” because of the resemblance between his cassock and the long coat Neo wore in the Matrix films, took things to a whole new level in an ad campaign for the priesthood emulating the Matrix films: I wonder if it would be possible to arrange a guest appearance at Butler next semester when I teach my class on religion and science fiction… Read more

A student drew to my attention the TV show Supernatural, which I’ve never watched, but it sounds appealing (sort of Indiana Jones meets Ghostbusters?). What makes me think I ought to watch it is the fact that apparently in one episode the characters, making sure they were prepared for their latest encounter with dark forces, went through a checklist of equipment that included “Mandaean amulets”. As far as I am aware, this is the first pop culture reference to the... Read more

“The Bible is like a stringed instrument in this respect. It only works because of great tension. Stop trying to take the tension out of the Bible. If you take away the tension, smoothing over and dumbing down and making everyingthing instructions and promises, all you get is a poorly tuned instrument and really bad music.” — Colin Toffelmire, “The Bible isn’t a bible“, on his blog Random Colin. Read more

John Hobbins has an interesting post about believers arguing against and disagreeing with the Bible. I highly recommend it, particularly as it comes from someone who does not in any way consider himself a “liberal”. The Bible includes a story about someone (Jacob) wrestling with God, and God apparently being unable to overpower him. Jacob gets a blessing (and a limp) out of the encounter. It would be a strange conclusion indeed, to say that it is inappropriate to wrestle... Read more

Mark Goodacre kindly took the time to both comment on an earlier post of mine that relates to one of his areas of expertise, and to post a more detailed response on his blog. As most who read this will already know, Mark has published extensively on the Synoptic problem and the reasons why he is persuaded that Q is an unnecessary hypothesis to account for what we have in the New Testament. It is not an area that I’ve... Read more

I’m grateful to commenter Edson for reminding me to return to a subject to which I promised to return, namely the question of whether Jesus ever claimed to be God. I mainly want to invite discussion of the subject, but I will try to note a few key points first about the use of evidence from the Gospel of John in relation to this topic. First, the uniform style of the Gospel of John and its distinctiveness in language and... Read more

The latest issue of Butler University’s student newspaper, The Collegian, includes an article about my recent book The Only True God. I was in two minds about doing the interview, since I’ve had some unpleasant experiences in the past. This time, I’m largely pleased with the outcome, with only one real exception: once again, the student journalist jotted down notes based on things I said, and from those notes constructed “quotes” which do not put things in exactly the way... Read more