When I reviewed Rabbi Zaslow’s book Jesus: First-Century Rabbi recently, he left a comment on the post, pointing out this interview that he did on Christian television. I thought it might be of interest to more readers than those who happened to be keeping an eye on the comments on that post, and so I’ve shared it here. Read more
A new meme is gaining popularity, taking images from TV shows or everyday life and giving them Buzzfeed style linkbait headlines for captions. Here are some Doctor Who ones I made: I’m sure there are better ones that you can come up with. If you make or come across any others, please do share them! Read more
It is interesting to look back and see which posts on this blog received the most views this year. The blog received more than a million and a half pageviews this year, of which the main page of the blog received the most. But looking at individual blog posts, the top ten most viewed this year were: 10. The Vista Black Screen After Login Mystery Solved. This solution to a widespread and well-known problem with Windows Vista was shared on... Read more
Via David Monroe on Facebook. You will have to be aware of both Doctor Who and the recent discussions about the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) for this to make you chuckle, but I suspect that is enough readers of this blog to make it worth sharing. Read more
Towards the end of a post about the Bible and interracial marriage, Fred Clark wrote this helpful summary of how liberal Christians like him and myself approach the Bible: The so-called conservatives tend to complain at this point that those of us who recognize and accept the diversity of the Bible are just picking and choosing the parts of the Bible that we like and ignoring the other parts. That complaint is quite a concession — an admission that we’re... Read more
Johnny Walker and Scot McKnight have posted about Tom Wright’s treatment of monotheism and Christology in his new two-volume work, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. I’ve been reading it, and unsurprisingly it takes a long time to work through nearly 1,700 pages. I will probably blog about it in chunks in the end. I meant to mention a while back that James White, an apologist, took pains to depict mainstream New Testament scholarship – even that produced by Christians – as... Read more
Jack Wellman has posted five really awful reasons to teach creationism in schools. He doesn’t seem to know that they are awful, and so let me briefly explain. 1) There are no criticisms of evolution: Wellman complains that there are no criticisms of evolution in textbooks even though it is (in scientific technical terminology he clearly does not understand despite using it) a theory that has never been upgraded to the status of law. He makes the common dubious claims... Read more
The site IO9 posted an article today about the James Ossuary. It shouldn’t be necessary to emphasize that the finding of an accused forger not guilty is not the same thing as the genuineness and authenticity of an artifact being adequately demonstrated. Unfortunately, as a result of cleaning and other things to which the bone box was subjected, we may never be able to answer that question to the satisfaction of experts. And in the absence of such test results, the... Read more
A variety of traditions, including Christian mysticism and modern existentialist theology, have spoken of the “God beyond God.” This is the very ancient idea that, beyond any sort of anthropomorphic deity that we may think of and tell stories about, there must be an even greater reality that transcends our ability to comprehend and describe. For many atheists, that question is often pushed aside or that ultimate reality is said to simply be the laws of physics. For ancient Gnostics,... Read more
A blog commenter as well as someone on Twitter drew my attention to the #SciFiXmas hashtag that had been trending on Twitter. There were some clever mash-ups of science fiction names and titles with Christmas carols and other such things. One of my favorites was “Away Team in a Manger.” Not surprisingly, there have been several Star Trek themed nativities. Here’s one example: It is worth mentioning once again that a manger is a feeding trough, and so this does not... Read more
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