Pete Enns recently mentioned time travel in connection with a tension between stories about how David and Saul first met: It’s possible that Saul is simply a moron, like the boss who can’t seem to remember the name of the mailroom guy—but that explanation just doesn’t feel right. In chapter 17, David came out of nowhere, slayed the giant, and neither Commander Abner nor King Saul knew him, and so David introduced himself to the king. David doesn’t answer, “Uh .... Read more
Steve Wiggins wrote about encountering fundamentalist Christian billboards along the road: One of the problems with driving is that you can’t get pictures of billboards. Well, given the way people drive around here, I suspect that may not always be true. Nevertheless, I always think of billboards as trying to sell something. There’s sometimes fairly easy to shut out, but in long stretches of otherwise uninteresting road you fall into their trap. Now having grown up in western Pennsylvania, we... Read more
The Forschungsstelle für Aramäische Studien at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main and its director, Prof. Dr Dorothea Weltecke, are glad to announce the upcoming seminar “Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing of Syriac Sources: Ongoing Projects, Current Issues and Methods in Practice”, an international workshop on ecdotical methods and approaches in textual criticism of Syriac and Garshuni texts organized by Dr Simone Isacco Maria Pratelli and funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Venue: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main (Germany), Campus Westend Dates: Saturday 07,... Read more
I have not been directly involved with the fragment that had been touted some years ago (and since) as part of the Gospel of Mark that purportedly dated from the first century. Its publication has been announced, and it is dated to the second to third century. Here in this post I’ll try to briefly summarize, highlight, and/or link to some of the most important blog posts and other sources of information with relevant details, for those interested in finding... Read more
When you find yourself apologizing for God’s demands, it is a good indicator that you ought to seriously examine your religious assumptions. On the latest episode of The Handmaid’s Tale (as well as multiple others), several characters apologize before doing horrible things that they either think they have to, or want to but wish to use God as an excuse for. Apologizing that one cannot call on the individual who used to be the best neonatalist in the country, because... Read more
I was obviously aware of Jesus’ contrasts between himself and his disciples on the one hand, and various texts and persons of ancient Israel on the other. Yet somehow the words of Luke 9:55 never struck me quite as forcefully as they did in a recent conversation on this blog. The words have such significance that there were scribes who understandably felt the need to omit them. A commenter here said that “Jesus never once denied God’s working as described... Read more
I came across the shirt below, and felt I had to blog about it: I’m not sure whether the shirt is based on a lack of awareness of the Bible’s contents, familiarity only with children’s Bible versions of stories, wishful thinking, or some combination of the two. But “explicit content” seems more apt than “E for Everyone,” wouldn’t you agree? I first blogged about what movie-type rating would be given to the Bible, or to works within the Bible, back... Read more
As I emphasized in recent posts, the reason that I abandoned biblical inerrantism is that it is not merely unbiblical, but anti-biblical. It silences all but at most one of the diverse voices within the Bible, and denies or explains away rather than accepts the evidence that the Bible itself provides for its own human fallibility. I have said more about that in quite a number of other posts over the years. And so, having spent so much time talking... Read more
On the same basic subject as another post a few days ago, a recent study found that religious fundamentalists and other dogmatic individuals are more likely to believe fake news: It turns out that people who “endorse delusion-like ideation” are more likely to believe fake news — as are “dogmatic individuals and religious fundamentalists.” “The vulnerability of these individuals to belief in fake news was fully explained by their tendency to engage in less analytic and actively open-minded thinking…” the... Read more
I hope that at least some readers picked up on the pun in the title. Yes, this post will be not only about mainline Christian denominations and comments related to their declining numbers in recent years, but also about science fiction. I haven’t read James Corey’s series of novels on which the TV show The Expanse is based. And so I don’t know how much difference there may or may not be between the two with regard to the things... Read more
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