Scholars of both the Bible and Rabbinic literature will be familiar with discussions of the Eighteen Benedictions (Shemoneh Esreh) and the debates about the history and original form of the “birkat ha-minim”, the “blessing (i.e. cursing) of the heretics”. Many New Testament scholars have intersected with this subject as it has been discussed in connection with the setting of the Fourth Gospel. Eventually, Christianity did indeed become a significant enough factor for Judaism to need to interact with it in... Read more

“Intelligent Design is pure science” has been the claim of the movement associated with this name from the outset. And now you can read about it in a brand new book that explains what Intelligent Design is. The foreword to the book is written by a well-known conservative Christian apologist (and one of the authors is that famous apologist’s son). Hey, wait a minute…How are we supposed to parody this viewpoint when the reality sounds like a joke?! At any... Read more

I just watched the latest episode of Doctor Who, “The Stolen Earth” [SPOILER WARNING for American viewers]. Fan sites are abuzz with speculation about what is going on, since David Tennant is supposed to be back as the Doctor in subsequent episodes. But Davros had been monitoring earth and watching LOST – that’s where he got the idea to hide the planets a second into the future. And that, I think, is how the Doctor’s new self, a second ahead... Read more

Many people are (or ought to be) interested in learning the language Jesus spoke as his native tongue, and in which his words were first uttered: Aramaic. It is also the language in which a few parts of the Bible were written, as well as the Talmud, Targums (paraphrases of the Jewish Scriptures), and other Jewish literature. Syriac, the dominant language of the Eastern church for a very long time, is essentially the same language, written with any of three... Read more

“Believers, Jews, Christians and Sabaeans—all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do what is right—shall be rewarded by their Lord; they shall have nothing to fear or to regret” (Qur’an 2:62). I post this in particular because of a discussion on another blog where someone spoke from their assumption that all religions are as inherently exclusivistic as fundamentalist Christianity. Islam, for one, has an acceptance of at least some other religious traditions explicitly built in to... Read more

In my class on Paul and the Early Church, we worked through several of Paul’s letters, including Romans. As I worked through this famous epistle once again, it seemed to me that the most popular passages for quotation from the letter are not the parts most central to Paul’s argument. Could it be that those who “quote-mine” the letter have, unwittingly, been engaged in a deconstructionist reading of Romans, focusing on tangential elements in a way that allows them to... Read more

I haven’t posted about the keywords that are listed as having brought people to my blog, but this one, for some reason, grabbed my attention. Someone in China was searching for the letter “T”. It brought them here. People continue to arrive searching for information about Who’s Who and phishing scams, about Barack Obama and Nicolae Carpathia, about Tiktaalik. I’m always glad to see the unusual paths that bring people here (and somewhat relieved that the traffic of people searching... Read more

There isn’t too much I want to say about the movie I am watching as I write this, For The Bible Tells Me So, apart from this: Watch it. It addresses the roots of homophobia, the Bible and how it relates to homosexuality, and the damage that parents in particular can do if they respond in the wrong way to their child who comes out to them. It addresses the science, the radical ways marriage between men and women today... Read more

I think that it should be a principled stance of educated Christians that we only take seriously someone’s claim to be a “Biblical literalist” when we are dealing with those who have sold all they have and have given it to the poor. Those words are found in the Bible and are as plain as day. Only those who consider it relevant to consider a broader range of passages and applications, contexts and considerations, can conclude that that does not... Read more

I like the way Obama responds to some of the rumors circulating about him with humor: Around the blogosphere, Joshua Rosenau has a suggestion for how to decide what to do with the millions transferred to you by that Nigerian bank Obama mentions. Pharyngula has yet another piece of evidence of the evolution of fish into tetrapods (also at Panda’s Thumb). If there is a conspiracy in science, the chief conspirator if God, who either placed these fossils there to... Read more