An opinion piece about academic conferences in the New York Times a while back got a lot of attention, and I created a draft post about it but didn’t return to the topic until now. On the one hand, it was saying something that I have said before – that it is hard if not impossible to quantify the value of such conferences, and administrators at some point are going to begin to question their value. On the other hand, the same... Read more
I had the two images above forwarded to me by a blog reader. They represent the average composite that emerged from combining the features of actors who've portrayed Jesus and Satan in films. I'll bet you can tell which is which without needing captions. Does this tell us anything about our stereotypes regarding these figures? Here is some more information about how these images came about, again forwarded to me by the same individual: The project came out of Bluefield... Read more
Happy new year to all who read this blog (and who use the Gregorian Calendar)! Read more
Rachel Held Evans shared the above words, in a post which also says “even the most painful religious experiences cannot simply be discarded. They must be confronted, molded, repurposed. It’s a messy, sacred process” and “Yes, we are called to grow and mature, and yes, our convictions and denominational affiliations will likely change, but I’ve found I’m a better writer—and a better person—when I’m more focused on outgrowing the old me than I am on outgrowing other people in my community.” Click... Read more
Courtesy of Bored Panda. Read more
There is more information on the St. Andrews Symposium blog. HT Jim Davila Read more
Over the past year, this blog received more than a million and a half pageviews, by more than 900,ooo distinct users. In the past, I’ve listed the most popular pages of the year regardless of when they were written, and I’ll mention a few from previous years later. But here is a countdown of the top 10 posts written in 2015: 10. Transracial Jesus 9. Heterosexual Marriage Under Threat (Map) 8. One Soul or Two? 7. Enabling Someone’s Sinful Lifestyle 6. Proof that Obama... Read more
This Star Wars themed painting by Banksy seemed worth sharing. Read more
Thom Stark wrote the following on Facebook: The book of Revelation is just a retread of the apocalyptic portions of Daniel and Ezekiel, almost to the point of plagiarism. And it’s full of plot holes. Just goes to show the creative bankruptcy of the whole covenantal reboot. But no offense to all your zealot followers and don’t let me stand in the way of all that bank you’re making. Bible is the biggest-selling book of all time. Just pure commercialism;... Read more
The Acts of John concludes with Jesus leading his disciples in song (with words that Gustav Holst famously set to music). Abram Kielsmier-Jones spotted a typo in an English heading in his Greek New Testament, which may provide the backstory to the incident in the Acts of John: Read more
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