Telling stories in episodes over a long period of time regularly leads to continuity errors. The Bible is no exception. One that was drawn to my attention recently is the mention of kosher or clean animals in the flood story in Genesis. Genesis 7:2 is the first reference to clean animals, and it is made without explanation. The author and readers take it for granted to such an extent that they don’t even notice that a detail is being introduced... Read more
This image came my way on Facebook. I know from experience the look on the faces of people who came to my door and tried to start a conversation with me about their faith by asking if I ever read the Bible, and I responded by mentioning that my PhD was on the Gospel of John. Rarely do those eager to share their faith have a genuine depth of knowledge about it. And rarely do they respond to a random... Read more
Sabio Lantz blogged recently about the criterion of embarrassment, and rather than address merely conservative Evangelical misuse of it, it sounds as though he dismisses the criterion entirely. And since the question of how New Testament historical methods compare to those used in other historical areas also came up here recently, I thought I’d blog about this. Not all historical Jesus scholars find the criterion problematic, when applied in historical appropriate ways, although some do adopt the stance of recommending... Read more
The quotation comes from an article that I came across recently, although it was written several years ago, about the reaction of paleontologists who visited the Creation Museum. Dr. Park is also quoted in an article in the New York Times on the subject. Read more
My pastor mentioned in his sermon this past Sunday that you can in fact put a square peg in a round hole. It just does a lot of damage, to both the peg and the hole. There’s a lesson in that. Read more
The Jesus Blog has a poll, asking “Do You Q?” Please click through and vote! I'd also be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject here. Mark Goodacre also discussed Q skepticism in the context of the academy on his blog recently. It also came up in discussion of another post here, whether the quotation of a saying of Jesus in 1 Timothy 5:18, attributing it to “Scripture,” could be a quotation from Q rather than from the Gospel... Read more
Jerry Coyne has written an incredibly lengthy complaint about a book he has not read. His rant suggests that deep down he knows that there is something wrong with the picture, but that doesn’t manage to stop him from simply plowing ahead. He begins by pointing out something that theologians have been saying long before atheists were and which therefore should not be news to anyone: the way liberal religious academics conceive of God is different from popular notions in... Read more
I came across an image on Reddit, and decided to make a different version of it. The original and the altered version are shared below. I would be interested to hear whether readers think one or the other (or perhaps both) follows from the logic presented. I think this gets at the heart of the question of how scientific data is incorporated into a worldview – and the important fact that what is often claimed as the implication of science... Read more
I don’t normally share toilet humor. But the cartoon above (shared by Scott Bailey) makes an important point. It is not enough to say that you believe a story in the Bible to be literally true and historically factual. If that story, treated as history or science, has implications, then you are saying that you take those things as literally factual as well. You cannot just say “I believe the Bible” when it comes to the flood story and not... Read more
It is common for people to think that the Bible contains clear teaching about abortion. This state of affairs goes back at least as far as Flavius Josephus in the first century. He wrote in Contra Apion II, 202: “The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her... Read more
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