I used to be much more fascinated by chiasms than I have been lately. What are chiasms, you ask? Instances in which, in the two-line units characteristic of poetry in Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic, two keywords or ideas switch places. A classic example from a saying of Jesus: The sabbath was made for people not people for the sabbath “Man” and “sabbath” swap places in the second line. If you draw lines between the matching keywords or... Read more
It is now official and so I am delighted to be able to announce that a proposal for a new SBL consultation focused on John the Baptist has been approved. Here is the information from the Society of Biblical Literature website: JOHN THE BAPTIST Chairs: James F. McGrath and Tony Burke Description: While there is always a steady trickle of interest in John the Baptist, recent publications in English, Spanish, and Italian suggest that there is a current surge not only in... Read more
I have been trying not to even think about what my next book might be after I wrap up the current project on John the Baptist. But as I’ve been moving towards completion of the current project, some of the points of intersection with other areas have grabbed my interest not just in relation to John the Baptist, but in their own right. One of those is the Synoptic Problem, i.e. the subject of how the Gospels of Mark, Matthew,... Read more
Forgive me readers…it has been eleven days since my last blog post. That Catholic allusion seemed like an appropriate way to start this post about the topic that drew me out of my sabbatical blog lull: the hilarious, profoundly moving, hard to categorize TV series Mrs. Davis. Like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Mrs. Davis manages to be ludicrously silly, literally laugh out loud funny, and so emotional that I got choked up. This seems to be an emerging genre of its... Read more
I apologize that it has taken me until now to blog about season 1 of Ms. Marvel. It is obviously great simply as yet another superhero television series, but this one is going to be of particular interest to those who teach about religious studied in general and Islam in particular, as well as those involved in interfaith efforts. I made notes as I watched it but didn’t turn it into a full-fledged blog post. Now let me just provide... Read more
I heard a preacher recently who claimed that babies crying for food and not being satisfied unless they got what they demanded was evidence of their inherent selfishness and thus sinfulness. At one point in the past I might actually have nodded in agreement, or at least not objected. This time I was quite horrified. I wrote a draft blog post and then set it aside. But then my Sunday school class turned its attention to the creation stories in... Read more
I made an appearance on the Unrelenting Love YouTube channel and spoke about my book What Jesus Learned from Women as well as about my work on the intersection of science fiction with theology. There are three segments and you can find all of them in a playlist here. Here are the individual videos: I should also share some of the memes made by my students this semester, which I have circulated on social media but never shared here on... Read more
As a follow-up to my post about so-called Doubting Thomas and the story about him in the Gospel of John, it is perhaps worth pointing out that the very same thing that is said about Thomas, almost in every detail, is said about the rest of the Twelve. Luke 24:1-12 says: On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from... Read more
I was asked what I would have preached on if I had been called upon to preach this morning, the Sunday after Easter in the Western calendar (and this year Easter Sunday itself for the Eastern Orthodox). My answer was that I would emphasize that Thomas’ experience was not about believing without evidence, the inappropriateness of doubt, or having an experience that then precludes doubt and uncertainty. The story in the Gospel of Matthew set at a mountain in Galilee... Read more
The recording of my talk about Google searches, Chat-GPT, and the computers on Star Trek is now available. I will share it at the end of this post. Let me here illustrate the key point. OpenAI has emphasized from the outset what Chat-GPT is. It emulates human speech patterns. It does this remarkably well. They have been very clear what it is not. It is not a search engine. It is not designed, as it shuffles language into new patterns,... Read more
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