I blogged today about a question that was intended to distract from a discussion of evolution and the shortcomings of young-earth creationism, and one person quipped on in a comment, ‘as the good Admiral would say…’ That reference was of course to the popular Admiral Ackbar “It’s a trap” meme. That in turn reminded me of a collection of 37 things only Star Wars fans will find funny that I saw a few days ago. And it included a couple of... Read more
A colleague drew my attention to one of the funniest things on the internet. There is something called “Blessed Quietness Journal” which lists its Editor-in-Chief as “Jesus Christ”! The most impressive thing on their web site is probably their long list of institutions that readers should not ally themselves with. The way it is formatted, it looks like the object of their ire is in fact the organizations whose advertisements are on the page! But seriously, click through to see... Read more
Joel Watts drew my attention to the fact that an individual named Tony Breeden, with whom I had been interacting on his blog, mentioned me on Facebook: My response was to ask whether, if I gave a simple “yes” answer and said nothing more, he would be satisfied and would return to the topic, or would then ask about what I mean by bodily, and by historical, and use other follow-up questions to distract from the topic at hand. Breeden... Read more
I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to participate in the blog tour focused on T. Michael Law’s book, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible. It is a book about the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures, and why you should be more interested in it than you probably are. In case you missed the blog tour thus far, Joel Watts started off the blog tour, followed by Andrew King,... Read more
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
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