Both of my recent books about John the Baptist are part of the sale that Eerdmans currently has going on, and can be purchased for only $9.99 from the Eerdmans website or Amazon. The A to Z of the New Testament is also part of the sale and only $6.99! If you subscribe to Eerdmans’ email newsletter, John of History, Baptist of Faith is featured as their book of the month. There will be a review panel about that book at the... Read more
I finally got to see Dune Part 2 in IMAX a while back and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it may have helped that it has been a number of years since I read the novel. Having read all of Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, and also having seen both the first incomprehensible Dune movie as well as the compelling miniseries, I found this to be more impressive and powerful than both. This movie (according to interviews with the director) seeks... Read more
Teaching my course on the Bible and Music again, I have been thinking a lot about the technology that can generate song lyrics and whole songs in an instant. The heart of the matter is whether I need to rethink the final project which involves adapting biblical text to fit the lyrics of an existing song. To test its current capabilities, I asked ChatGPT to turn Psalm 119 into song lyrics in common meter. Here is what it gave me... Read more
I was already thinking about writing a post on this topic of information bubbles long before the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Seeing the commentary of a few connections on social media as well as reports of what pundits and pastors have said convinced me that I need to write about this. Watching Different Debates (or rather, watching the same debate differently) Those who saw the debate between Donald Trump who were not already connected with American... Read more
Here are details about some of the upcoming speaking engagements I have lined up. The first is Mt. Washington Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Here is the information: The A to Z of Biblical Studies with Prof. James F. McGrath Join us for two Wednesday evening meetings (September 11th and 18th at 7 pm) for two sessions in which our guest, Prof. James McGrath from Butler University in Indianapolis, provides as much of an introduction to biblical scholarship as it is possible... Read more
Are Christian same-sex relationships an oxymoron? Or is claiming that God prohibits love – not lust but love – what is really strange in the current discussions? If you follow the early reviews of New Testament scholar Richard Hays’ new book The Widening of God’s Mercy, written with his son Christopher, they are a very revealing exercise in missing the point. The complaints from conservatives consistently focus on Hays and Hays not making the argument through exegesis. In other words, in... Read more
You probably remember how, during the first season of Star Trek: Discovery, the news circulated that characters were not even allowed to say “God” on the show. That this turned out not to be the case as a rule was appropriate, since the second pilot of TOS witnessed Capt. Kirk pontificating about the attributes of a deity. With that as the starting point, it is perhaps especially fitting that the final season of Discovery has had a spiritual focus. The... Read more
Deuteronomy 18 has this to say about false prophets: 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’— 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the... Read more
As of June 1st I am chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Butler University. Like all Humanities subjects, the study of religion has witnessed a significant decline as students gravitate to the majors in STEM fields that they imagine will guarantee them jobs and high salaries. All this is happening simultaneous with the major sectors of industry emphasizing the need for Humanities skills in the current context. As the World Economic Forum published a few years... Read more
Vote for the party of biblical values! Have you been told that? I was recently (and not for the first time) by someone who was clearly aligned completely with the Republican party. The individual also claims to be a Christian. When I pushed back on their stance, they assumed that I’m a Democrat. The starting point for any discussion of U.S. politics as it relates to faith ought to be that no major party is likely to completely represent biblical... Read more
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