I lived in Romania for three years, have been married to a Romanian for seventeen, and have had a lot of contact with Romania and Romanians. I love the surprised look on people’s faces when I tell them that I didn’t really understand the New Testament until I lived in Romania. Romania was part of the Roman Empire at one point, but even had this not been the case, it still would be part of that region stretching along the... Read more

This is just a quick post to say that I’m back from the conference about the Mandaeans in Oxford. It was really excellent. Even though the papers reflected many different angles on the Mandaeans – from anthropological perspectives on their current refugee plight to philological considerations about Mandaic magical bowls to mentions of the Mandaeans by Medieval authors writing in Arabic – I assume others felt as I did, that they all were interesting. It was a wonderful opportunity to... Read more

Although I am a Protestant, I must confess that the idea of ‘sola Scriptura’, of ‘Scripture alone’, doesn’t work. It could perhaps theoretically work in Islam, where one can (assuming one doesn’t take a critical approach to the text) assume the unity of the book as a given. In the case of the Bible, such assumptions are impossible. In order to speak of ‘Scripture’, one has to accept the authority not only of those Jews and Christians who made the... Read more

In their book on Rumor Psychology Nicholas DiFonzo and Prashant Bordia mention the concept of “Matthew Accuracy”. Deriving its name from the principle in the Gospel of Matthew that “to the one who has more will be given, but from the one who does not have even the little he has will be taken away”, Matthew Accuracy denotes the tendency of truthful rumors to become more truthful, while false rumors tend to become more false (pp.152-4). If it could be... Read more

The world we live in is full of mysteries. When we envisage the self-replicating molecules that drive life on this planet, we wonder how they could have arisen, and we seek explanations. Likewise with the very fact than anything exists at all, we wonder why there is something rather than nothing. To say “God did it” is not an explanation. To suggest that an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being is somehow self explanatory and a way to eliminate mystery is misguided.... Read more

For many fans of Doctor Who, among our favorite episodes are the ones where the Doctor encounters his earlier selves – which inevitably leads to arguments! Although intended primarily for comic value, I presume, there is an important insight in these episodes. If I were to meet an earlier me, I would encounter a person very different from the one I am today, and I can easily imagine arguments ensuing, as I who I am today tried to share what... Read more

Pat McCullough has posted Biblical Studies Carnival 43, in the form of a ‘recently discovered text’ called “The Apocalypse of Eve”. Take a look! Read more

I couldn’t resist the opportunity to have a blog post with such a striking title. But of course, it is the blog The Church of Jesus Christ that has begun to consider (and blog about) my recent book, The Only True God. Given that the blogger in question goes by the nickname Polycarp, it will be obvious how many potentially striking church history-related headlines I had to pass up… Read more

There are things your minister, pastor, priest or preacher would love to be able to tell you, but cannot because of concerns about job security. I am not only thinking about the scandalous revelations that occasionally come to light, nor even the relatively minor fact that your pastor sometimes comes to the pulpit the same way all of us come to church at times – feeling less than inspired, having just argued with a spouse, or in some other way... Read more