Dan Wilkinson was not entirely happy with just the numbers provided in Paul Foster's article, from which I shared some statistics in a previous post. So he made this: There are exceptions and unusual viewpoints. I know someone who doubts Paul wrote Galatians. If he had been there, the chart would have an outlier. But gathering and collating views compensates for such things, and even when scholars with unusual views are present, one can still get a clear sense... Read more
Neil Godfrey has made chapter 7 of Thomas Brodie's recent book, Beyond the Quest for the Historical Jesus, available online. It provides a wonderful illustration of the sort of forced parallelomania that I recently parodied. There might perhaps be an allusion – whether by Jesus or by the Gospel author – to the stories about Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings 19. A phrase like “I will follow (after) you” [ἀκολουθήσω ὀπίσω σου in the LXX, ἀκολουθήσω σοι in Luke]... Read more
Radio Times reports that an announcement of some importance will be made tonight, while another news source says the announcement will be made on Sunday. Apparently Arnold Schwarzenegger is a serious contender for the role…at least in the imagination of those who made these images: Read more
If anyone tells you that one's assumptions do not impact their impression of what the Bible says, show them this: HT The God Article on Facebook Read more
Rick Sumner shared this delightful image (from a Koine Greek subreddit that I had no idea existed!): Click through to see the image full size. I really appreciate Rick’s comments on the results. And I think that seeing numbers like these can be more helpful than references to “what scholars think” or “the consensus view.” Quantifying the matter – even in an anecdotal survey – helps readers see that there are some things that scholars genuinely agree on (Paul wrote... Read more
When a god begins to require the custodial protection of those who worship him, he is no longer a god. He becomes an idol. May we all find the courage and wisdom to never make ignorance the aim of religion, nor idolatry the replacement for faith. — Crystal St. Marie Lewis, “On Christian Fundamentalism’s Ongoing Effort to Win Custody of Jesus“ Read more
“Garden of Eden to become Iraqi National Park.” That’s the headline in New Scientist. The article is about the preservation of a part of the southern marshlands of Iraq, the region where the Ma’dan Marsh Arabs have historically lived, and a traditional homeland of the Mandaeans. Local lore also claims it was the site of the Garden of Eden. There is a movie Gwendolen Cates is working on, “Mourning in the Garden of Eden,” which looks at religious minorities in that region, including... Read more
If I’ve seemed surprisingly quiet over the past couple of days, it is because I decided that I ought to finally respond to Apple’s notifications that there was an update available for iOS, the iPad operating system. I backed up my iPad, then let it do its thing. As has happened on the last several occasions when I’ve upgraded, it ended up stuck in “Recovery Mode” and could not simply be upgraded and used, but needed to have contents and... Read more
Many readers will already be aware of the University of Durham E-Theses repository, where digital copies of dissertations are made available. But there is also a larger institutional repository, Durham Research Online, which allows one to search and find not only theses but also articles and other materials written and published by Durham academics. Visit http://dro.dur.ac.uk/ and take a look. And if you are local to Durham, you may also be interested in the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibit! Read more
HT Robin Parry Read more
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