Today’s Non Sequitur. While Moses seems not to appreciate it, according to the Bible, Caleb was one of the few from the Exodus generation allowed to enter the promised land. And he lived to be at least 85. Maybe surfing had something to do with it? Read more
Some seem to think that the basis for their judgment before God will be whether they were as judgmental towards others as they think God also is. Read more
Charles Häberl has blogged about an issue that translators regularly face, and which we must deal with as we work towards the final version of our translation of the Mandaean Book of John (or as it might perhaps better be called, The Doctrine of John or The Teaching of John). How are names best translated? When the Mandaean text is clearly referring to Jesus, presumably using any rendering other than “Jesus” in English would cause confusion. But doing that will miss... Read more
I’ll be on a panel of invited speakers at SBL in 2014, talking about Bart Ehrman’s latest book. In addition, I’ve had a paper accepted by the Metacriticism of Biblical Scholarship consultation. Here’s the abstract: Can University Walls Keep Out The Internet? Statements can be found on the websites of many sectarian educational institutions, indicating that faculty and students are required to subscribe to a particular doctrinal statement. The rationale for this was presumably clear, once upon a time. By... Read more
In discussions of Christology, a major divide (as illustrated by the dueling books between Ehrman and several Evangelical scholars) is between those who say that “high” Christology was present as far back as we can trace, and those who see such Christology as a result of a long period of development. Two key pieces of evidence influence these two standpoints. On the one hand, we can clearly trace development across the Gospels over time, from Mark to John. On the... Read more
Then again, the sign did get me to go look at their website and watch a bit of a video, and so if that was the aim, it worked… Read more
A comment on this blog drew the above lecture by Keith Ward to my attention. There is a transcript on the Gresham College website. I have not had time to watch the video yet, but I previously shared another of his lectures on this topic, and blogged about his book More Than Matter? Let me also use this opportunity to share a link to a recording of the THATCamp roundtable last year on religious studies. Read more
I have often been struck by the parallel between religious terminology about salvation and the ways we talk about digital data: in terms of being “saved. And there are those who hope to achieve longer life, if not ultimately eternal life, by making a backup copy of their mind that can be transferred to a computer, or better still an artificial body. It’s a staple of science fiction, and even gets a mention in an episode of Friends. Could you... Read more
Peter Kirby has shared a list of the most popular biblioblogs this month. Exploring Our Matrix came in at number 8. Thanks for reading! Read more
The above quote on Facebook seemed worth turning into a meme, and so I did so, with the author’s permission. “In my view, Ham’s basic mistake is to separate God and Truth. Not only is all truth God’s truth, but God and Truth are indistinguishable. God is identical to his attributes. Inasmuch as Ham stands against reason, he stands against God. An atheist on his knees brushing sand from a fossil kneels in worship, whether he knows it or not.... Read more
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