2020-12-31T11:40:00-05:00

Last updated on: December 31, 2020 at 11:40 am   By

It will probably never cease to seem ironic to me the extent to which conservative Evangelicals engage in historical revisionism on topics like the Bible and inerrancy, atonement, faith, science, abortion, and countless others. I distinctly recall how much emphasis was placed by the Evangelicals around me, when I was in that context, on getting back to authentic Christianity in contrast with the many counterfeits on offer. Yet those who study the early Christian movement with the tools relevant to... Read more

2020-12-27T14:38:58-05:00

Last updated on: December 27, 2020 at 2:38 pm   By

Religious freedom – it seems like such a simple concept and such a lofty ideal. Yet we can still find ourselves getting muddled in all sorts of grey areas, or at least areas that raise important additional issues, even if those pertaining strictly to religious freedom are ultimately clear cut. There is something fundamentally different between the free speech of a minority group and the free speech of a group that is in the majority, particularly if it is an... Read more

2020-12-28T06:44:49-05:00

Last updated on: December 28, 2020 at 6:44 am   By

Those who simply identify Marxism, Communism, and socialism, and view socialism and Christianity as inherently incompatible, have never read The Communist Manifesto and have never understood the Bible. In most instances they also don’t understand American democracy either. I say that it is clear they have not read Marx and Engels because one of the things they do in their manifesto is argue against other varieties of communism and socialism, including Christian varieties. Even before that Engels quoted a statement by... Read more

2020-12-27T07:01:13-05:00

Last updated on: December 27, 2020 at 7:01 am   By

I am puzzled why most commentators regard the reference in Mark 3:21 as being to Jesus’ family. It isn’t that I cannot see how that interpretation is possible, but why is it treated so much as the default that it is taken for granted by most modern English translations? I see several major difficulties with this interpretation of the text: It is not the most natural meaning of the phrase used, which is literally “those alongside him.” The family of... Read more

2020-12-22T09:19:28-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2020 at 9:19 am   By

I was delighted to provide an endorsement for Derrick Peterson’s new book Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes which will be out soon. Here’s what I wrote: Derrick Peterson combines painstakingly detailed historical research with a delightful writing style to tell the story of a famous war that never actually happened. Through primary source after primary source Peterson uncovers the neglected truth that the supposedly eternal conflict between religion and science is a myth, not only in the technical sense of a... Read more

2020-12-23T19:45:25-05:00

Last updated on: December 23, 2020 at 7:45 pm   By

I want to wish all readers of my blog who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas! The story published I published in the first issue of AcademFic has a Christmas connection, and so initially when I announced that I thought I’d share some other seasonal links along with it. In the end, there were so many that I opted to keep them for a separate Christmas post. For those who stick more strictly to the church’s calendar, the actual connection of... Read more

2020-12-22T09:28:56-05:00

Last updated on: December 22, 2020 at 9:28 am   By

I have mentioned here a few times an endeavor that started as a seeming realistic desire and has now become something real that I am both incredibly proud and incredibly humbled to have had the privilege to spearhead. In addition to all the writing that academics are required to do for our professions, many of us write fiction. We do so for a wide array of reasons. Sometimes we just have stories that take shape in our minds and that... Read more

2020-12-21T22:45:45-05:00

Last updated on: December 21, 2020 at 10:45 pm   By

I have had many moments when I’ve been eager to blog about the season of The Mandalorian that just finished with that awesome jawdropping finale (“Chapter 16: The Rescue”). We’ve seen over the course of the season the return of Boba Fett and incredible live action performances of characters we had only met previously in animated form, including Ahsoka Tano played by Rosario Dawson and Bo-Katan Kryze played by Katee Sackhoff who was the voice actor behind the animated character.... Read more

2020-12-20T21:09:06-05:00

Last updated on: December 20, 2020 at 9:09 pm   By

I have blogged about the Genesis song Supper’s Ready before (links to those previous posts at the end of this one). After an introduction to Genesis by way of their music from the Phil Collins era, my cousins played for me and then actually gave me one of their LPs, the album Foxtrot which includes the song/suite that is the length of an album side, Supper’s Ready. Long songs/suites are of course typical of prog rock. I will confess that... Read more

2020-12-19T07:29:43-05:00

Last updated on: December 19, 2020 at 7:29 am   By

This seems like a natural place to go after my recent post about John’s Christology. As I emphasized already in my first book, John’s Apologetic Christology, there are significant continuities between John and earlier texts, however much we think he may have developed things. Some but by no means all of this relates to Christology, and if the preponderance does it is itself indicative of the fact that the earliest and latest Gospels share a focus on Jesus, however different the language... Read more

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