Today my class on the Bible focused on stories from among the Writings, the third major section of the Hebrew Bible, including Chronicles. I was struck that the ending of Chronicles provides important evidence for the multiple authorship of the Book of Isaiah. In 2 Chronicles 36:22, the author makes much of the fact that the pronouncement of Cyrus, that exiles can and should return to their homeland to rebuild, fulfilled what the prophet Jeremiah was recorded to have said, that... Read more
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. It provides a nice illustration of how we sometimes accept an argument from a premise that we take for granted, without realizing that the premise itself is problematic and deserves examination. Read more
Mythicism has done a pretty good job of spreading the idea that all the information Paul and others had about Jesus was gleaned from visions. That claim doesn’t fit the evidence. We certainly do have evidence that the genre of the apocalyptic vision was popular among Christians as among other Jews. But that is a literary genre, and we should not envisage the authors of these literary works, most of whom wrote in someone else’s name, actually had the visions they... Read more
The above cartoon appeared in a 3quarksdaily post that is part 1 of a series called “Becoming Moses.” I thought it was interesting because it raises important questions about the concept of God. Ideas about gods seem to clearly emerge out of observation of forces of nature, which were presumed to themselves be, or to be manifestations of, powerful conscious entities. The idea of one God first wrapped those all into one, and then became separated from the forces of nature. And... Read more
I’m not sure if there are new posts or reposts of older material. But James Tabor has been revisiting a lot of topics related to the James Ossuary and the Talpiot Tomb on his blog. One post tried to provide a comprehensive overview of the evidence as he sees it. Two posts focus on what is controversial about the James Ossuary and why it is controversial. One post focused on the language used on the ossuaries in the tomb. He... Read more
From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. Read more
I received this notice from Who North America today: FINALLY! It is with great pleasure that we announce our soft opening of the new store on Tuesday, March 1, 2016!!! Our new location is at: 8901 S. State Road 67 Camby, IN 46113 Our telephone number and email remains the same. Our operating hours for the first month will be from 11 am to 8 pm, Tuesdays through Saturdays (no appointments necessary), to help us gauge traffic flow and demands.... Read more
Just a reminder that the deadline to submit paper proposals for the AAR and SBL Annual Meeting in San Antonio in November is tomorrow. Visit the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature websites for more details. Do note as well that the call for papers ends at different times for the two organizations. Read more
I assume that anyone who continues to read my blog regularly probably shares my enjoyment of and interest in science fiction, religion, and humor. And so if you haven’t seen it already, you will want to watch the clip above, which sees Stephen Colbert torn between his childhood faith and upbringing, and his church. Read more
Click to enlarge so as to be able to read it better. Were you aware of all of these? Which seem like the most important ones to highlight? Any others that you can think of that should have been included? Read more
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