Welcome Back My Friends to the Carnival That Never Ends

Last updated on: June 1, 2013 at 11:53 am By James F. McGrath

Jeff Carter has posted this month’s Biblical Studies carnival – click through to see it! Here’s the song by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Karn Evil 9, that his title (and thus mine) alludes to: The post-apocalyptic overtones are ever so appropriate. But Jeff’s carnival is full throughout with different carnival-themed music. You definitely want to check it out. See too this month’s Hebrews carnival, which includes some of my “ramblings” and “musings.” Next month’s Biblical Studies Carnival will be at... Read more

Fundamentalists Treat Christianity Like It Is Just Another Religion

Last updated on: June 1, 2013 at 8:23 am By James F. McGrath

It is often interesting to note the disconnect between the explicit claims a group makes and what their stances and attitudes imply in practice. Take for instance the viewpoint (widely held among fundamentalists) that their Scripture, understood to be inerrant divinely-revealed truth, can be taken as the starting point, an assumption to which everything else must be subjected. They think that in doing so they are defending Christianity, in the conservative form that they understand it. But they are doing... Read more

Mandaean Resources Online

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 9:59 pm By James F. McGrath

In one of those interesting internet convergences, two blogs I subscribe to offered links to web resources related to the Mandaeans in the past couple of days. First, Hieroi Logoi highlighted several online resources, in particular the Mandaean Book of John project that I am involved in. And then shortly after, Ancient World Online shared the Mandaic.org website created by my project collaborator Charles Häberl, as well as some related links. Many thanks to Paul Dilley and Charles Jones for... Read more

Is Claiming the Holy Spirit as Author of the Bible an Unforgivable Sin?

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 6:27 pm By James F. McGrath

I have been having a Facebook interaction with someone who claims that the Holy Spirit is author of the writings in the Bible. On the one hand, this claims does not seem to make sense, since the same person also claims to accept that there were human authors as well. But what does it mean to say that Paul authored or composed Romans (Tertius wrote it), and at the same time that the Holy Spirit wrote it? If Paul did not... Read more

The Context of the Context of Jesus’ Words

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 9:48 am By James F. McGrath

It is not infrequent to hear self-centered pseudo-Christians justifying their lack of concern for the poor by appealing to Jesus’ statement, “The poor you shall always have with you.” The full statement, as those concerned about context know and emphasize, is “The poor you shall always have with you, and you can help them anytime you wish; but me you shall not always have with you” (Mark 14:7). In its immediate context, therefore, the point is not about poverty being... Read more

A Low View of Scripture

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 8:44 am By James F. McGrath

Mike Beidler posted this as his status update on Facebook and I asked for permission to quote him: To say that if any part of the Bible is of the myth genre, so goes the rest, is to present a blatantly false dichotomy. Disregarding the fact that Genesis contains etiological literature (i.e., origins myth) is actually a “low view” of Scripture. It disrespects the text(s), outright censors the ancient voices that produced the text(s), disregards authorial intent, and is guilty... Read more

Testing Evolution vs. Direct Creation

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 7:43 am By James F. McGrath

An interesting video, worth sharing with those who claim that evolution is untestable and that the differences between mainstream biology and young-earth creationism are merely due to the same evidence being viewed through different lenses of presuppositions. Read more

Can Biblical Inerrancy be a Biblical Doctrine?

Last updated on: July 19, 2017 at 10:17 am By James F. McGrath

I recently heard someone emphatically assert that Biblical inerrancy is a Biblical doctrine. Many approach this topic by discussing the specific passages that talk about the “Word of God” or “writings/scriptures.” None of these says that the texts in question are inerrant, and some of them do not in fact seem to be talking about texts at all, but about divine speech. But there seems to me to be a more basic and simpler logical point. When the texts that... Read more

Tension Between Author Name and Article Title

Last updated on: May 30, 2013 at 10:07 am By James F. McGrath

I had to share this. Sometimes there are amusing convergences between a person’s name and their job – as when Sorin Frunzăverde was appointed as the Romanian Minister for the Environment. His last name is an exact equivalent of the English “Greenleaf.” Well, today a student cited an article with the title “Navigating “Deuteronomistic History” as Cultural Memory” published in the journal Religion & Theology. The surname of the author of this article about memory? Forget! Read more

Khaaaaaaaaan!

Last updated on: May 30, 2013 at 8:17 am By James F. McGrath

No, this isn’t a post about Star Trek. It is about something that sounds just like the title of this post: the con, which originally stems from confidence man. And that is worth thinking about. Tobias Buckell linked to an article about research which shows that a pundit’s popularity correlates not with their knowledge or accuracy but with their confidence. I suspect this is at least as true among Christians, if not more so. Charlatans and liars like the proponents of young-earth creationism... Read more