Before anyone suggests otherwise, let me emphasize that I am not claiming that mythicism always or even regularly leads to support of Trump. Most people manage to keep their problematic reasoning compartmentalized. But as William Clifford warned long ago, once one believes something on insufficient evidence in one area, one is setting oneself up to do so in others. And so it is no more of a surprise to me that Robert M. Price, the mythicist, is also a Trump... Read more
This is labeled on YouTube as a sung version of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic. But it is elsewhere labeled as Psalm 53 in Syriac, sung in Georgia, for Pope Francis! It is beautiful either way, but this illustrates nicely the problems that arise when people start discussing texts in languages they don’t understand. Not knowing Aramaic is excusable. Making claims about it despite that fact is not. I’m glad that, if you Google “Aramaic Lord’s Prayer,” some of the... Read more
We’ve been given the first glimpses of the Doctor Who Christmas Special. It will be called “The Return of Doctor Mysterio.” In other news, Peter Capaldi apparently wants there to be an episode in which the Doctor awakes to find himself the star of Doctor Who… Read more
Hemant Mehta posted an SMBC comic in which someone asks God about the story of Jael in the Book of Judges. The story about Jael (and Deborah) is not at all hard to understand. It is about two women who rise to the challenge of defeating an enemy of their people, in a patriarchal context in which men were expected to play these roles. It even involves a striking inversion of the expected: in the climactic scene in which Sisera inappropriately enters Jael’s... Read more
I recently spoke to Marc Allan, our university press liaison, about my latest book, Theology and Science Fiction. Click through to read the press release that he wrote. http://news.butler.edu/blog/2016/10/theology-scifi/Â Read more
It had been a while since I had heard this fabulous piece of music, but it was on the radio yesterday, and so I had to offer it to blog readers to listen to as well. Enjoy! Read more
I assume that most people will get the joke. Of related interest, there was an article recently about the fact that we are not living in reality because our senses and minds are not formed to really show reality to us. Read more
Every working day, I pass by a plaque that was set up to commemorate my installation as the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature. Lately, the difference between myself and the photo has been noticeable, even jarring. But yesterday I noticed that I may be starting to resemble the photo on the left, of Clarence L. Goodwin himself who endowed the chair, more than the photo on the right, of me. What do you think? Presumably a... Read more
Jacob Wright wrote the following on Facebook, and I asked for permission to share it. The worst way to evangelize is to ask someone that “if they died tonight do they know they would go to heaven.” The reason is because it’s not the gospel. It has nothing to with the gospel or the kingdom. Jesus and the disciples never once said “Repent so you can go to heaven when you die” or anything of the sort. Rather, it was... Read more
Letting you know about this upcoming event. It is close to sold out, so if you plan to attend, you should act fast! Read more
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