On Cracked.com, an article appeared today with the title “5 Miracles Deleted From the Bible For Being Too Awesome.” While the idea that the contents of the extracanonical Gospels and Acts were deleted from the Bible is simply wrong, it is very cool to see the Gospel of Peter, the Acts of John, and other such sources getting this sort of attention. Many of the stories in them do indeed deserve to be widely known than they are. And of course,... Read more
I read the words below in an article in today’s New York Times about the blurriness of the lines between history and historical fiction in recent movies. How do you think its points relate to the depictions, reworkings, and interpretations of history in the Gospels? I for one doubt that the majority of people in the audience of movies about historical events, any more than the majority of readers of the Gospels, have the kinds of historical discernment and sensibility... Read more
Rick Brannan’s edition of the Greek Apocryphal Gospels, Fragments, and Agrapha for Logos offers an important new resource that anyone interested in the early history of Christianity will want to have. There are in fact two “volumes” – the Greek texts themselves in the original language, and an English translation with an introduction to each text, explaining its history, contents, and significance. When older editions either of the Greek text (e.g. Tischendorf) or English translations (e.g. M. R. James) have... Read more
From the web cartoon series Shortpacked. Read more
For those who appreciate atrocious puns as much as I do… Read more
My review of Dennis R. MacDonald’s book Two Shipwrecked Gospels: The Logoi of Jesus and Papias’s Exposition of Logia About the Lord has been published by Review of Biblical Literature and can be read online. Here is how the review begins – hopefully that will inspire readers of this blog to click through and read the rest! Works that bring about a sea change through their radically innovative approach to a scholarly question are rare. Whether Dennis MacDonald’s Two Shipwrecked... Read more
If “liberal Christianity” means Christianity that reflects the cosmology and worldview of a particular era, then the earliest Christianity is liberal Christianity. It is only later, as cosmologies and worldviews changed, that some insisted on clinging to the views of an earlier era, because those happened to be part of the worldview of previous generations of Christians, including the Bible’s authors. That is why “conservative” Christianity ends up being a very radical departure from earliest Christianity, even in the process... Read more
I had the privilege of participating in worship at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Indianapolis this evening. My pastor Tom Bartley was invited to preach, and brought our church music team (of which I am a part) with him. The church has a fascinating history – for instance, it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. I am so delighted when (as Tom talked about in his sermon) churches come together to collaborate, rather than viewing one another... Read more
A student shared the above with me. All these years teaching the Bible, how did I miss the bestiality? The depiction of it as a novel, as though the entire thing were a single piece of literature in a single genre, is also well off target. But presumably the point (however much one may criticize the details) is the contrast between the graphic contents of the Bible and the reading to children from its pages. I've discussed before the fact... Read more
A friend drew my attention to the above video which, starting around the 3:37 mark, is about the Mandaeans in Sydney, Australia. The video is from the BBC documentary series, Around the World in 80 Faiths. On the BBC documentary’s web site, you can also see many other video clips, including about the Samaritan Passover. Read more
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