Let us now define the New Christian Right as people who get more upset about the possibility that they might have to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding than they do about revelations that their own representatives have not only molested children but covered up such molestation. If we can even call those “values” then they are deeply skewed, because where I come from molesting children is a far greater sin than baking a cake. I disagree with Jonathan... Read more
Matthew Malcolm shared this map of Romans 1-8, using the rhetorical questions as signposts to the structure. What do you think of it? Read more
From People in White Coats. The expectation of an apocalyptic return of Jesus in the Bible is something that, in our era of much-decreased Biblical literacy, might indeed surprise some people. I’ve heard lots of people refer to “the second coming of Jesus Christ” and mean, not a descent from heaven on clouds of Jesus who previously ascended, but the birth of someone who will discover that they are to play a decisive role towards the end of history, akin to... Read more
I’m long overdue to record another song parody. And so here’s “Caffeine” to the tune of Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” If you want to get up, you’ve gotta grab your mug, caffeine If you want to get down, pour water on coffee grounds, caffeine Feel alive, feel alive, feel alive, Caffeine If you got that work, and appointments to keep, caffeine When your day is done, but there’s no time to sleep, caffeine Feel alive, feel alive, feel alive, Caffeine If you... Read more
Claude Mariottini posted on his blog that he is hosting the next Biblical Studies Carnival. If you have noticed any posts, whether on this blog or any other, that pertain to the academic study of the Bible, and which you think deserve to be highlighted, please do let him know! Read more
It struck me that the phrase that one often hears on radio stations – “the greatest hits of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond” – could apply equally well to the Bible. It is a compilation of works which were considered to be particularly worth keeping and revisiting from a larger number of works written by Christians in this period. I’ve always been the sort of person who dislikes “Greatest Hits” compilations. I prefer listening to whole albums. There are a... Read more
My pastor recently mentioned the fact that, because Earth’s water is a closed system, the water we drink is likely to include, sooner or later, water that was part of the wine at the last supper, or in the Jordan river when Jesus was baptized. Pliny the In-Between turned that scientific fact into an image about people trying to make money off of it. Which is worse? People rejecting science in the name of religion? Or people accepting but misusing... Read more
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt... Read more
A conspiracy theorist is someone whose circumstance has conspired to make fantasy preferable to reality. They are unlikely to abandon their alternate reality until we can show them some alternate to the reality they’re fleeing — something better than the powerlessness and the meaninglessness that made the fantasy game seem like a more attractive choice. – Fred Clark Click through for the context. Read more
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