Denying What You Don’t Understand

Last updated on: March 18, 2014 at 10:58 am By James F. McGrath

The quote from Hemant Mehta in the image above comes from a post of his, discussing how young-earth creationists reacted to the announcement yesterday that ripples of gravitational waves from cosmic inflation soon after the Big Bang had been detected and confirmed. It is ironic that anti-science creationists now oppose a scientific view which atheists initially balked at because it reminded them too much of Genesis. I particularly liked the quote, because to genuinely and legitimately reject something, you really... Read more

God and George Takei Agree

Last updated on: March 18, 2014 at 8:28 am By James F. McGrath

Both of these were in my Facebook feed last night, and so it seemed worth sharing them together. In case you have missed the news, Fred Phelps, founder of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, has been excommunicated from that church and is said to be near death. Read more

On the Biblical Cutting Room Floor

Last updated on: March 18, 2014 at 7:22 am By James F. McGrath

What else can you imagine being found on the cutting room floor of the Bible's editors? Read more

Excellent Historical Fiction or Poor History?

Last updated on: March 17, 2014 at 2:30 pm By James F. McGrath

Richard Carrier’s talk about the Acts of the Apostles seems to slip back and forth between two claims. One is that the work is historical fiction. The other is that it is trying to be history but failing. The actual evidence complicates this claim. Carrier mentions Colin Hemer’s classic study of Acts, Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History. That work shows that the background information in Acts about individuals and local details are frequently accurate where there... Read more

Full Professor

Last updated on: March 17, 2014 at 1:11 pm By James F. McGrath

I just received the official letter that I have been promoted from the rank of associate professor to professor. For those who may not be aware of these aspects of academia, or live in a country where the ranks have different titles, in the United States the system is as follows. The tenure track usually involves being at the rank of assistant professor up until one applies for promotion and tenure in one’s sixth year. The next rank is associate... Read more

Jesus’ Diving Nature

Last updated on: March 17, 2014 at 12:34 pm By James F. McGrath

A careful reader of the publicity material in the photo in my last post pointed out that it actually mentions “Jesus’ diving nature” where presumably it meant “Jesus’ divine nature.” Proof-reading is crucial! Although perhaps they can say that diving is here a metaphor for the incarnation… Read more

Wash Your Hands of Bad History

Last updated on: March 17, 2014 at 10:45 am By James F. McGrath

I have yet to read either of the dueling books, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee and How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature—A Response to Bart Ehrman. When I do, I will discuss them in terms of their contents and arguments. But the latter probably wins clean hands down for the cleverer marketing strategy. I just got this in the mail together with a copy of the... Read more

Agog About Gog

Last updated on: March 17, 2014 at 9:08 am By James F. McGrath

Mike Skinner wrote a post about the end-times prophecy approach to the Bible, and the attempt by some to identify Vladmir Putin as Ezekiel’s Gog. Here’s the conclusion: Let’s stop the madness of pretending that ancient prophetic texts are futuristic codes for us to decipher current political events. Let’s read the biblical texts responsibly. Click through to read how he gets there, with good reasons why this way of approaching the Bible is problematic (to say the least). A few days... Read more

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Last updated on: March 17, 2014 at 6:42 am By James F. McGrath

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Instead of simply drinking green beer or eating a green bagel, why not read something that Patrick himself wrote? Via the British Library blog, I learned of a website that has images of maniscripts of St. Patrick's Confession which can be viewed online, as well as translations into English and other modern languages. Read more

Breaking News! Tomorrow There Will Be Breaking News!

Last updated on: March 16, 2014 at 9:02 pm By James F. McGrath

Via IO9 I learned that the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has news so important that it needed to tell us today that they will tell us tomorrow. The leading guess is that they have discovered evidence of gravitational waves. But it really could be anything related to astrophysics. And so what do you think it is? Suggest something really exciting, really unlikely, really funny, whatever. If it turns out that you are right, you will be rewarded, as always, with... Read more