I have been talking a lot lately about how Biblical inerrantists are forced to twist the Bible in order to defend their doctrine about the Bible. People with a certain way of viewing Jesus do the same to Luke's Gospel. There is a famous story in Luke 2 about Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem when his family had gone up for a festival. In most of the artistic depictions of that story (see the one on the right as an... Read more
Someone posted questions from a high school student in a Facebook group that I am part of. Here are the questions with my answers, in case anyone else finds them interesting: Let me offer my own answers: How long are the days in Genesis 1? ANSWER: The text is referring to literal days, but the order is due to parallelism, and they are part of a depiction of God having a working week, which I consider anthropomorphism. “How long are... Read more
I’ve been asked if I can come up with a list of the best recent science fiction books for publication in November, as a sort of Christmas shopping list. I am very conscious that I have lagged behind in my reading of fiction, even in this beloved genre, and am worried that something may have simply flown under my radar. And so I thought to myself, why not ask on the blog? So that’s what I am doing. What would... Read more
Tony Jones shared the announcement that Patheos has created a topic page for the round-up of blog posts offering progressive Christian perspectives on God. My post is featured there. Click through to see who else contributed and what they had to say. Read more
Joke-teller: So Ken Ham, Al Mohler, and Pat Robertson walk into a bar… Literalist: Really?!   And for those who don’t face the challenges that literalists do (or should) with humor, there’s this: Read more
I apologize that the very start of the recording was cut off. Not much was lost, but it makes the beginning a bit abrupt. But with the title provided, hopefully those few introductory words are not really necessary. Read more
This is what Ken Ham and other young-earth creationists would stand for if they were at least trying to be consistent Biblical literalists. This is not a parody, it is a genuine argument for the flat and fixed Earth viewpoint. To any young-earth creationist reading this, I would like to know whether or not you accept the argument in the video, and if you don’t, why not, since to someone who is not (or like me, is no longer) a young-earth... Read more
The blog Unreasonable Faith shared this: I think that really what it is getting at is the fact that some people do not think the truthfulness of their position is as self-evident as their rhetoric claims, since otherwise they would not be opposed to their children and those under their influence thinking and exploring freely. As someone who is religious but who prioritizes truth above all else, I would say that the search for truth should take priority over any... Read more
Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne have created a blog, which focuses not only on the upcoming conference about the criteria of authenticity, but more generally on their scholarly research about the historical figure of Jesus. It is called The Jesus Blog. Â Â Read more
Most readers will immediately realize that this post is not going to be about who or what Kindles worship, but is about the fact that my book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context is available for Kindle, and for much less than even the cost of the paperback edition. Read more
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