Today in my Sunday school class we discussed the difficulties historians have if they try to fit together the information from Matthew and Luke about the birth and infancy of Jesus. The dates, place of origin and geographical movements seem difficult if not impossible to reconcile. In the process, we talked about our cultural assumptions about “history” and how these differ from ancient authors in general and historians in particular. We also discussed other issues of cultural background, such as... Read more

I received an error message today as I was trying to post something – an alert that a blog is not allowed to have more than 2,000 labels. My first thought was “How arbitrary! How restrictive!” My second thought was “I have 2,000 labels?!?!” I probably won’t leave it up for long, but I’ve decided that, before trying to clear out some of the labels used only once, I should share the list of labels and keywords with you. If... Read more

Someone drew an article to my attention that explores the mystical and fantastic in recent sci-fi, and asks whether it is overtaking the scientific component, looking at the example of the recent movie 9. I wonder if the “y” in SyFy (the new name of the Sci-Fi Channel) is from “mYsticism”… Read more

The National Center for Science Education sent an e-mail highlighting a useful book that can be downloaded free online, entitled Religion in the Public Schools. It provides legal advice about what it is legal and not legal to teach with respect to religion in such a setting, as well as issues related to evolution and science education. Read more

I just received word about this upcoming event: Richard Dawkins will be discussing his new book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (Free Press, 2009), at 7:00 p.m. on October 12, at the IU Auditorium on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington. Admission is free and open to the public, so please spread the word! The event is sponsored by Themester, which seems to be an endeavor to have semester-long themes. Read more

A colleague and friend had his letter to the editor published in the Indianapolis Star. It is a response to Pulliam’s piece on evolution that I mentioned a couple of days ago. In related news, a commenter drew my attention to an online version of the book Creator and Creation by Ronald A. Simkins. And presumably everyone has heard by now about “Ardi” (the nickname given to a hominid fossil of Ardipithecus ramidus that has been the focus of much... Read more

I’m in the process of organizing a reading and discussion group on campus. The group will consist primarily of faculty from religion, biology and philosophy. Thus far, it looks like the inclination is to discuss the Genesis creation stories from an academic perspective, and hopefully provide the biology faculty with tools that can help them address concerns and questions that students sometimes bring to the science classroom because of their religious background. I’m inviting readers to recommend books that offer... Read more

Jim West has responded to my post – or in his terminology, “smacked me down”. If you click through, you will find his response very entertaining. But you’ll also increase the number of visits to his site, thereby making it likely that next month he’ll rank as the #1 biblioblogger yet again. So please do consider the consequences before clicking the link above… Read more

A friend drew my attention to an article entitled “Toward An Evangelical Theology of Cussing” which I thought some readers might find interesting, particularly those with research interests in kakalogology. Read more

Even as Jim West’s minions at the Biblioblog Top 50 have ranked him #1 for the 7th month in a row, a shocking truth has emerged about West’s credentials and may lead some to accuse him of hypocrisy. In addition to blogging about the Bible, and criticizing those “dilettantes” who talk about the Bible even though they do not have the relevant expertise and credentials, Jim West also blogs regularly about total depravity. Having obtained a copy of West’s CV,... Read more