Michael Barber has a great quote from B. F. Streeter on form criticism. Deepak Chopra may be worth quoting on the subject of the upcoming election. The Austringer tells us what we can do to help support science education in Texas and warns of more Discovery Institute misinformation. NT Wrong separates bibliobloggers into liberal and conservative categories. Undeception talks about the lake of fire in Revelation. The latest Christian Carnival is up at Fish and Cans. Chet Raymo reflects on... Read more

Last night I dreamt I was on the island. Behind everything that was going on there was an artificially intelligent computer. I don’t think my subconcious mind managed to contribute anything to unravelling the mysteries of LOST. A student of mine, on the other hand, is making better progress. He started watching only recently on DVD, and so he has yet to experience the pain of having to wait a whole week for the next installment. Here are some thoughts... Read more

OK, I admit it, a better title would be ‘”Did Jesus Exist?” on YouTube’. Be that as it may, I decided to upload a video addressing some of the points that I’ve been trying to make in recent discussions on this blog and elsewhere about the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus. Here’s the video: Two points are perhaps worth emphasizing in writing here as well. First, claiming that Jesus existed does not mean, from a historian’s perspective, claiming... Read more

I didn’t sleep through class. But I did get an e-mail about a site called “I Slept Through Class“. The site offers students an opportunity to upload and download class notes. Are other educators aware of this? Do you think this is good news or bad? Will it encourage students to sleep through class, or to collaborate in ways that may in fact be helpful to their getting the most out of their college experience? Read more

Stephen Barkley has posted a review of The Burial of Jesus on his blog and on Amazon.com. Read more

It seems like the frenzy of interest in the possibility that Obama is the antichrist is increasing as election day draws closer. I’ve had more hits than usual on my blog today, most of them from people searching on search engines for keywords like “Obama Revelations 13”. Presumably they are looking for Revelation 13 rather than “revelations” in the generic sense. Most of them have ended up at my post “Left Behind with Obama“. I think that post remains useful,... Read more

There were two cartoons posted on blogs recently, related to the current economic crisis in the United States, that seemed worth sharing. The first is from the Kenyan Daily Nation (HT Kouya Chronicle): The second I found at Shuck and Jive: Read more

I’ve begun a “bloggersation” with Tom Verenna, on the subject of the existence of Jesus. I hope that in future posts, Tom will call me James. Otherwise, I’ll come back and edit this post and call him something more than simply “Tom”! 🙂 In his reply to an earlier post of mine to which I pointed him, to get the conversation started, he objects to my appeal to authority (pointing to the consensus of most historians) and to my pointing... Read more

In a discussion of The Burial of Jesus, which advocates the use of historical methods to investigate historical questions, I encountered the accusation that this approach reflects the “antisupernaturalism” of historians. I am convinced that this accusation is unfair, for two reasons. First, it is not simply historians who ask for more impressive evidence for more unusual claims. Few of us would treat claims made by individuals alive today, both of whom claimed to be pregnant, and one of whom... Read more

I won’t go into details about the book by John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie and Joel Kilpatrick, The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book (HarperOne, 2008), both in order to allow readers to get the full possible enjoyment of the book, and to keep my blog G-rated. The book could be described as a survey of current scholarship proposing interpretations of various passages involving sex, toilets, S&M;, beer-making, depression, and various other elements that many... Read more