Brandon Hawk, Apocrypha for Beginners

Last updated on: July 20, 2021 at 5:42 am By James F. McGrath

I’m grateful to Brandon Hawk and to Rockridge Press for a review copy of Hawk’s new book, Apocrypha for Beginners: A Guide to Understanding and Exploring Scriptures Beyond the Bible. The book does something important that no other book does in a comparable way, namely offering a succinct, affordable overview of the range of texts that can be categorized as “biblical apocrypha” in the broad sense. The book includes the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical works proper, making clear that what is in that category... Read more

“To Your Tents, O Israel!” A Neglected Background to Early Christianity

Last updated on: July 13, 2021 at 6:46 am By James F. McGrath

Those who have read my book What Jesus Learned From Women and/or have heard some of my recent presentations about Mandaeism (or Gnosticism more generally) will be aware of something that has come to the fore across several of my (otherwise seemingly unrelated) research areas. We focus on the Jewish context of early Christianity more than on its broader Roman context, and appropriately so. However, the broader heritage of Israel is generally neglected or mentioned only in passing when the Samaritans come... Read more

Psalms by George Theophilus Walker

Last updated on: July 7, 2021 at 4:53 am By James F. McGrath

Time for some more biblical music for your enjoyment. Listening to a symphony by George Walker recommended by YouTube led me to his two Psalm settings. Here is “O Praise The Lord” (Psalm 117): Here is his setting of Psalm 96: Also listen to his violin sonata. For another Psalm setting, here is Herbert Fromm’s “Grant Us Peace”: For more biblical music, here is one of R. Nathaniel Dett’s Bible Vignettes, “Other Sheep”: Igor Stravinsky composed a work called Babel... Read more

Could John the Baptist Have Been From Nazareth?

Last updated on: July 1, 2021 at 10:44 am By James F. McGrath

This post relates to the book project that I’ve taken the first steps towards working on as a major focus the academic year after next, on the historical figure of John the Baptist. There is a longstanding puzzle I’ve wrestled with, and recently had some ideas about, and having put them in writing in an email for someone who was interested in the topic, I thought I would also share them here. The Mandaeans use the term Nasoreans (Mandaic nasurai)... Read more

Revelation Roundup

Last updated on: June 29, 2021 at 1:22 pm By James F. McGrath

There was enough blogging about Revelation recently to merit a blog post collecting them for convenience of blog readers. Four Tips for Reading the Book of Revelation (Guest: Dr. David deSilva) https://ehrmanblog.org/why-my-book-on-revelation-has-been-different-to-write/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-my-book-on-revelation-has-been-different-to-write Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars: Guffey, The Book of Revelation There is no actual connection between this and Revelation, but there is an imaginary one: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/06/23/christian-man-sues-employer-saying-getting-fingerprinted-violates-his-faith/ Read more

The Most Extraordinary and Implausible Inventions Ever Woven out of Gospel Texts

Last updated on: June 24, 2021 at 6:17 am By James F. McGrath

The lectionary reading for this coming Sunday is one that I devote a chapter to in my book What Jesus Learned from Women. If you’re a minister still trying to figure out what to preach this Sunday, I commend it to you. Indeed, I’d like to hear from anyone who uses my book (whether an individual chapter or the whole thing as a sermon series) for the purpose of preaching. I could see it being helpful, and can even imagine preachers... Read more

Religious Futurisms #CFP

Last updated on: June 22, 2021 at 11:15 am By James F. McGrath

This call for papers came to my attention and seemed worth sharing: Religious Futurisms: A Call for Papers We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a forthcoming collection of essays on the broad topic of Religious Futurisms, to be edited by Sumeyra Buran Utku and Jim Clarke. Religious Futurisms derives its intellectual inspiration from the emergence of Afrofuturism and other Alternative Futurisms as ideological and analytical frameworks in recent years. Religious Futurisms can manifest as ideology, criticality,... Read more

Mandaeans in the News

Last updated on: June 21, 2021 at 10:35 pm By James F. McGrath

As I shared on Facebook yesterday, an article I wrote for The Conversation about the Mandaeans has now been published. It is a real privilege to be able to study the texts and traditions of this fascinating community, and to count some of their number among my friends. Mandaean Artist Yuhana Nashmi has brought together 100 stories in a new book that will launch later this month: 100 Souls 100 Stories 100 Tiles. I had the privilege of meeting Yuhana when... Read more

The Bible and the Bots

Last updated on: June 15, 2021 at 5:20 pm By James F. McGrath

When people are asked what distinguishes a robot from a human being, they will often point to the potential of the latter to act freely, and thus to surprise you. And yet human beings – at least when considered in larger groups – act in ways that are repetitive, traditional, and thus often predictable. For this reason, when it comes to the question of how historic human religious traditions will respond if artificial intelligence in the fullest sense is developed,... Read more

New Book: #WhatIsGodLike by Rachel Held Evans and Matthew Paul Turner

Last updated on: June 15, 2021 at 7:04 am By James F. McGrath

There was one person who was immediately at the top of my list of possible endorsers for my book What Jesus Learned from Women when I began working on it: Rachel Held Evans. By the time I finished the book, my sadness at her untimely death was compounded with the thought that I would not have the chance to find out what she thought of the book. Recently, I began to see the at once thrilling and heartbreaking news that... Read more