The Invisible Preface to Genesis

Last updated on: July 11, 2013 at 9:33 am By James F. McGrath

Young-earth creationist Bibles do not begin with Genesis. At least, that is the impression they give. It is as though there is an invisible preface which they alone can see, which they read first, and which provides the lens through which they view the creation material in Genesis. From the way they interpret Genesis, the invisible preface must read something like the following: What follows is divinely revealed truth not merely about theology but about science and history. It contains... Read more

Home at Last

Last updated on: July 21, 2016 at 6:39 pm By James F. McGrath

I encountered some delays on the last leg of my trip here in the United States, due to weather. But otherwise everything went smoothly, and I am now back home in Indianapolis! Read more

Arctic Sabbath

Last updated on: July 10, 2013 at 8:37 pm By James F. McGrath

This probably would be a good name for a band. But having just heard a sermon about the Sabbath last weekend, and reflecting on the fact that the length of the Sabbath differs with the seasons, it struck me that in the arctic and in Antarctica, the Sabbath, and any Jewish or other observance that depends on sunset, could face serious issues. I discovered that I was not the only person to have thought about this. There is a Wikipedia... Read more

Sacrificing Sacrificial Language

Last updated on: July 10, 2013 at 10:06 am By James F. McGrath

The last time my Sunday school class met, we discussed whether the language of “sacrifice” is essential to Christian thinking about the death of Jesus, or is a metaphor or illustration used in New Testament texts precisely because it related the death of Jesus to something familiar, helping people to make sense of it. In Leviticus, it is not as though sacrifice is introduced as something which God demands. It is assumed that readers of the text (1) know what... Read more

To My Non-Whovian Readers

Last updated on: July 10, 2013 at 8:05 am By James F. McGrath

If you read my blog regularly, and don’t get my Doctor Who references, I just want to say, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Read more

Technological Transformation

Last updated on: July 10, 2013 at 12:16 am By James F. McGrath

I am writing this on a bus with free wi-fi that will (unless something unexpected happens) take me to Heathrow Airport. That I could pop across the Atlantic for a conference in Oxford for a few days is itself a marvel of technology, but one that has been around for a while now (and was more affordable in recent memory). But other technological developments have changed what the experience of being at a conference here was like, just compared to... Read more

Ken Ham Thinks He Is God

Last updated on: July 9, 2013 at 8:52 pm By James F. McGrath

This excerpt from a recent piece in the Christian Post tells us a lot: “One of the things fundamentalist Christians mess up on is they try to say the earth is 6,000 years old. The Bible never makes that claim,” Jeffress said. To those comments, Ham responded: “It is so distressing that so many of our Christian leaders don't seem to understand that to accept man's fallible beliefs of billions of years, Big Bang etc, they are really undermining the... Read more

Cruelty to Animals?

Last updated on: July 9, 2013 at 8:35 pm By James F. McGrath

Via Episcopal Church Memes, HT Jim West Read more

The End of the 2013 ARAM Conference on the Mandaeans

Last updated on: July 9, 2013 at 7:17 pm By James F. McGrath

The ARAM conference on the Mandaeans officially ended at 7pm this evening (although some of us hung out afterwards). Here is a final photo we took in front of the Oriental Institute with most of the attendees: This includes the scholars as well as some Mandaeans who attended not because they are academics, but because they wanted to hear what academics say about their history, literature, and other aspects of their tradition. There are certainly a few more scholars who... Read more

The Mandaean Refugee Crisis

Last updated on: July 9, 2013 at 1:58 pm By James F. McGrath

The last two presentations were by Erica Hunter and by Layla al-Roomi and another Mandaean, and they focused on the situation of Mandaeans today. Mandaeans face discrimination and persecution in their historic homelands in Iran and Iran, and in the diaspora they face the difficulty of trying to preserve their heritage when they may have little or no community, do not have their religious texts in the languages their children grow up speaking, and if someone marries outside the community,... Read more