The point that the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke doesn’t have an “inn” in it has been given the Matrix treatment by Jeff Carter. Read more
The point that the story of Jesus’ birth in Luke doesn’t have an “inn” in it has been given the Matrix treatment by Jeff Carter. Read more
The cartoon above came to my attention via Daily Kos. Brice Jones recently wrote a blog post about Stephen Carlson’s argument regarding the mistranslation “inn” in Luke’s infancy narrative. That in turn builds on the case that Kenneth Bailey has made regarding the cultural background of that story. On the one hand, the traditional versions of the Christmas stories – both those in Matthew and Luke – can be useful in addressing issues like refugees and hospitality. On the other... Read more
Libby Anne shared some examples of the different framing of events in the media. White survivors of hurricane Katrina were described as having “found bread,” while black survivors were described as “looters.” And while anyone with dark skin or who is a Muslim will be described as a thug or terrorist, Robert Dear is said by the New York Times to be a “gentle loner.” The language the media uses matters. It doesn’t just express our own biases, but passes them... Read more
Paul Levinson recently shared the video above on his blog, which is a lecture explaining the rationale for the forthcoming book, Touching the Face of the Cosmos: On the Intersection of Space Travel and Religion. This is the collection that my science fiction short story, “Biblical Literalism in the New Jerusalem,” will be published in. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon. Read more
From Rachel Held Evans. HT Brian LePort for this year’s reminder. Read more
The above photo came to my attention on Facebook. It is a very clever way of making the point about how much computers have changed over the past 58 years. The photo at the top is the first delivery of a computer. The photo at the bottom has one that has a much greater computing power, held in someone’s hand, at the right distance from the very same building in Norwich, England, so as to make it look like it is... Read more
It has been funny to see what atheists have had to say about the Seven Tenets posted online by a Satanic Temple. You can read them below. What is interesting to me is the way these newly-minted tenets of a newly-minted religious group are used as a basis for mockery, saying something like “Look, Satan’s ethical code is better than God’s.” That, presumably, was the point of creating them in the first place. But the whole enterprise is problematic, even as an... Read more
After having a discussion here at Exploring Our Matrix in which an atheist insisted that there cannot be atheist fundamentalists because atheists reject all dogmas, it was interesting to see Harry McCall dogmatically insist what atheists “must assert” when it comes to the historicity of Jesus. Indeed, he goes further and insists that he (despite offering nothing more than weak garbage in his post) knows why all professional historians, and all but a couple of fringe New Testament scholars, draw the... Read more
This episode begins with a monologue about the sense of life being lived in constant threat of danger and death. The Doctor thinks about Clara’s death, and is angry in a way that we have rarely seen. The Doctor has been brought to a castle, but with TV screens on the walls. The Doctor realizes he is afraid of dying, and is confronted with the specter of a woman whose death he saw as a child and which terrified him... Read more
Due to the AAR/SBL conference and Thanksgiving, I am more than a week behind in blogging about the latest Doctor Who episodes. And so I will get caught up with two blog posts today – and then will soon get back to finishing off my blogging through the classic series, which I finished rewatching a while back and just need to actually blog about. The episode “Face the Raven” witnesses Doctor Who going full Harry Potter, with a secret street... Read more
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