In my Sunday school class and fellowship on Easter morning, which met via Zoom, I shared a thought from 1 Corinthians 12, observing that this text stands between Paul’s comments on the dividedness of the church in Corinth and their resurrection faith. Here’s the text I read: 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so... Read more
Some thoughts on blog posts related to one of my major fields of research – Christology and monotheism – as they relate to things that have appeared on blogs in recent days. Let me start with Keith Giles’ post about Jesus’ words from Psalm 22 on the cross. I agree with Giles that the widespread popular interpretation of Jesus’ words on the cross is misguided. But the “Messianic prophecy” approach he substitutes in its place is no better, especially given the... Read more
Brian LePort interviewed me on the topic of the ascension. I’m happy to be able to share the video with you below. These are the questions Brian posed to me: Explain to my students why I’m talking to you about this subject. In other words, what’s the focus of your research and academic career? This week my students will be reading the Resurrection Narratives in the (canonical) Gospels. They’ll notice that only the Gospel of Luke mentions Jesus’ ascension directly (though there’s... Read more
Lots of academics, and in particular historians, have been bristling every time someone calls the current pandemic and the crisis surrounding it “unprecedented.” Those who’ve studied history know all too well that this is not the first nor the last such event, nor one that is thus far or is likely to become unique in history in any meaningful way. It is worthwhile reflecting not only on why we view our own suffering as “unprecedented” when it is not, and... Read more
Teaching a course on the Bible and music leads me to encounter so much material that I can scarcely manage to blog about everything that is interesting – much less include it all in the class! The same is true of religion and science fiction, and many other subjects. But it seems especially true in the case of the Bible and music, because as I’ve said before, at every point of intersection there tend to be multiple settings of the... Read more
I didn’t manage to share Nina Paley’s movie “Seder-Masochism” in time for Passover when I first learned about it. This year I hope it brings some comfort and hope to those celebrating in ways that are not what they would have hoped for nor are accustomed to. I first encountered Paley’s delightful creative work through her musical adaptation of the Ramayana, “Sita Sings the Blues.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QkYOqI3jSM More about the Passover-related as well as the earlier project below! Seder-Masochism: Nina Paley... Read more
People in religious traditions with major holidays in April this year are experiencing disruption. To some it seems surreal, but to others (as I’ll explain more about below) it may seem eerily familiar. While some clergy contemplate when and whether to put themselves in harm’s way to comfort those who are suffering and dying, other clergy have shown themselves willing to put others in harm’s way in order to ensure that the weekly offering is not impacted too detrimentally, and/or... Read more
Mike Kok blogged recently about some of my academic work on Christology and monotheism. He writes: The majority view is that Paul has “split the Shema”, so the divine identity includes the one God (i.e. the Father) and the one Lord (i.e. Jesus) as the source of all creation…The alternative position is advocated by James McGrath on pages 38-44 in his book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in its Jewish Context (University of Illinois, 2009). McGrath argues that the reference... Read more
There’s so much that deserves to be said, and deserves to be better known, about ancient Israel’s religious traditions prior to the monotheistic revolution that gave birth to Deuteronomy and the Torah, as well as the persistence of those traditions into later times. I hope in the near future to explore aspects of this in things I am writing. I believe there is a connection to the origins of Gnosticism, and will explain why as soon as I can turn... Read more
In this APB I share a clip about Rob Orlando’s movie Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe in which he asks directly whether Paul was guilty in relation to the laws of Rome as they existed in his time. Even asking the question is important, since we so often equate whether someone was guilty of lawbreaking with whether they were wrong in a moral sense. But those are separate questions, even if our ideal is and should be to have the illegal... Read more
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