From Scenes from a Multiverse. The view of how Christians view the Old Testament is at best a caricature. But the cartoon does nicely poke fun at those who would speak of the inerrancy of “original autographs” that we no longer have, simply to be able to assert that the Bible was once inerrant (and so now is still a close approximate to that inerrant original). This has long struck me as a rather odd last-ditch attempt to salvage the... Read more
This graphic which came my way on Facebook seems to make an excellent point. I was not able to confirm that the actual number of shootings in schools was 5, and it seems that that number may include institutions of higher education as well as elementary schools. Whether any religious schools are in that figure I am also not sure. But the stat for church shootings 115 in 2012 – is confirmed by Christianity Today. There are two possible ways... Read more
A cartoon from ASBO Jesus. An irony I see is that, precisely because the Bible cannot talk in the way depicted in the cartoon, it cannot object to conservative Christians who say things like “the Bible says….” They often try to treat God in the same way. Read more
I’m posting this to spread the good news that David Hayward, the cartoonist known to many from his blog Naked Pastor, is moving his blog to Patheos. Welcome, David! Some of his cartoons I absolutely love. Some of them I strongly disagree with. They are pretty much never dull and never fail to get you thinking. Do you have a favorite David Hayward cartoon? If so, which one? Here’s one of my favorites of his: Read more
At SBL in November, John Dominic Crossan spoke about Eastern Orthodox iconography of the resurrection (I previously blogged about this). Here is an example of the iconography: I was struck by the consistent depiction of Jesus grasping Adam by the wrist, which I assumed symbolized that the entirety of the salvation was accomplished by God, with humanity passively rescued and unable to contribute. The day before yesterday, in a presentation by a colleague in Classics, I discovered that this gesture... Read more
Ovid Butler was born on this day in 1801. Among the things that he did during his life was to found North West Christian University, which eventually became Butler University. And so at Butler we call this day Founder's Day. Read more about Ovid Butler in the brief bio on the university web page. Read more
Tim Gombis has shared some powerful thoughts about fundamentalism. Here is a sample: The fundamentalist error is the assumption that when I perceive some fundamental of the Christian faith to be threatened, I have the prerogative to be violent. The implicit logic at work here is that at critical moments the best way to defend the Christian faith is to betray it. The most effective way to advance the cause of Christ is to disobey his commands. It is the... Read more
Larry Hurtado has a post about the group of scholars who have come to refer to themselves in humorous fashion as the “Early High Christology Club.” The post includes this delightful story which Larry told me and some others at dinner one evening at SBL in Chicago: An incident often cited subsequently took place after an annual meeting of the “Divine Mediators in Antiquity Group” that featured invited presentations from James D. G. Dunn and Maurice Casey (who each took... Read more
The Doctor Who episode “Colony in Space” from the Jon Pertwee era sees the Doctor sent on a mission on behalf of the time lords, although without his being informed of the nature of the mission in advance. It seems as though the confines of Earth felt too restricting not only to the character of the Doctor, but also the writers for the show. His exile did not persist for all that long, and was rescinded temporarily on more than... Read more
If you don’t know what this meme is about, Michael Zimmerman’s recent article in the Huffington Post might help. Read more
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